Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 39

II Scholarly prehistory
19
Resen’s Eddie editions were to all intents and purposes the only
source of information on Eddie matters outside Scandinavia for near-
ly a hundred years, and they consequently enjoyed an almost unri-
valled authority. Nevertheless, in the same year as they appeared, a
general scepticism as to the value of Old Norse literature was vented,
corresponding to the more disenchanted attitude of an Olaus Petri.
In 1670 the leamed polymath Pierre-Daniel Huet, later Bishop of
Avranche, published an essay on the origin of the novel (“Traité de
l’origine des romans”) which is an important landmark in the history
of literary criticism, and became particularly well known because it
appeared as an introduction to Mme de Lafayette’s popular novel
Za'ide,30 Having acquired some notions of the Edda and runic
monuments during a stay in Sweden as the guest of the humanist
Queen Christina, Huet in his gentlemanly survey of world literature
mentioned that no people are without a literature, be it in Peru or on
Madagascar, in Guinea or in Canada; story-tellers are everywhere to be
found. Even the Old Norse peoples had procured for themselves an
origin no less fabulous than that of the ancient Greeks, he said, and in
Denmark he had himself seen their old histories written in runes on
great stones. Referring to the Swedish humanists Olaus Magnus and
Johannes Scheffer he gave an extravagant description of literature and
social life in Old Scandinavia, where the banquet guests gorged them-
selves with poetry and food until they feli under the tables.31 Somewhat
more sober was the description of the Scaldres of the Danish king,
30 Cf. e.g. Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon 8 (1990): 133.
31 “Les anciens habitans de Danemarc, de Suede, & de Norvege, se sont fait des origi-
nes du moins aussi fabuleuses que celles des Grecs. Ils écrivoient leurs Histoires faites
å plaisir en leurs vieux caracteres Runiques, sur de grandes pierres, dont j’ay veu quel-
ques restes en Danemarc. Le divertissement le plus ordinaire de leurs festins, estoit de
chanter en vers rimez les beaux faits de leurs anciens Geans. Ce recit tiroit les larmes
des yeux des conviez; & la bonne chere faisant avec cela son effet, les pieurs se chan-
geoient en cris & en hurlemens, & tous enfin tomboient sous la table en confusion. Les
Rois de Danemarc avoient toujours des Scaldres dans leur cour, c’est-å-dire des Poétes
& des Poétesses, dont l’unique occupation estoit de faire des vers sur tout ce qui arrivoit
de memorable. Ces vers, quoy que rimez & embellis de fictions & d’allegories, étoient
faits sur le champ, & sans préméditation. Ils estoient aussi-tost appris & chantez par le
peuple, & en se repandant dans le monde, ils portoient dans les contrées éloignées la
gloire des Rois, de la nation, & des Poétes qui en estoient les Auteurs.” (ed. Kok 1942:
213-14).