Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 36
16
Part One
yond the North wind’), which according to Olaus Rudbeck was in real-
ity a corruption from “gambla goda Swenskan” (good Old Swedish),
meaning ‘the highbom of Bores lineage’ - in short, ‘the most important
in the realm’. In naming the North wind Boreas, the Greeks in reality re-
ferred to the Swedish kingdom of Bore. This ingenious etymology justi-
fied in its tum an assimilation of everything antique literature told about
the Hyperboreans to Swedish prehistory.19 One of these accounts was
found in the Pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochos, where it is told of a
certain Gobryas that he found on the island Delos some bronze tablets,
taken to Greece from the Hyperboreans by Opis and Ekaerge and that on
these tablets were stories about the wanderings of the soul in the under-
world after its departure from the body.20 In Rudbeck’s rendering, Opis
and Hecaerga “brought the Nordic carved copper tablet to Delos, written
in our letters and containing information on its idolatry and the like”.21
According to Rudbeck’s careful chronology this happened in the year
2380 after the creation, i.e. 1570 B.C. From this passage Rudbeck in-
ferred that the runes were the very oldest script and that they had served
as model for the Greek alphabet, but he did not State in plain words that
the Edda had been written on the tablet. To be sure, he was convinced
that Sæmundr’s Edda, at least the poem Vafprudnismal, was from a
period long before the birth of Christ; but “in the year of Christ 1100
they were found here in Sweden, and copied here by the Icelander
Semunder Frode”.22
In the first edition of the Edda in Sweden, which was made by the
clergyman Johan Goransson, “the last Rudbeckian”,23 the identification
is spelt out, however. In 1746 he edited Snorri’s Edda from the Uppsala
manuscript, and in the dedication he stated that “three hundred years be-
fore Troy was built, the Edda was written on brass tablets because of its
19 Cf. Nordstrom 1934: 139^10. On the ancient Hyperboreans, cf. e.g. Pauly-Wissowa,
Real-Encyclopådie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft 9 (1916): 258-79.
20 Cf. Souilhé 1930: 147.
21 “At Opis och Hecaergæ tijd som forde ut med sig den Norrske uthhuggna Koppartaflan
til Delos, medh wåre bokstafwer och wettenskap om des affgudadyrkan och annat sådant
[...]” (Rudbeck 1937-50, vol. 2: 201; cf. vol. 1: 335, 537, 557).
22 “Odens Skaldeqwad kallat Waftrudners Mal, den långt for Christi tijd skrefwen år, och
år An. Christ. 1100. har i Swerige igenfunnen, och då af Islendaren Semunder Frode har
afskrifwin” (Rudbeck 1937-50, vol. 3: 139).
23 Olle Franzén, Svenskt Biografiskt Lexicon 17 (1967-69): 659. Conceming Goransson’s
work on Snorra-Edda, cf. Grape 1962: 41-51.