Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 44

24
Part One
that he adduced the testimony of skaldic poetry, which ever since has re-
mained the most solid basis for comparison in questions of the dating
and authenticity of the Edda. The hest known skaldic poem in the 18th
century was Kråkumål, above all beloved for its heroic refrain “hlæjandi
skalk deyja” (laughing shall I die), a poem which was particularly apt in
Bartholin’s work on the contempt of death; and since the Saga of Rag-
narr Lobbrok reported that it was recited by Ragnarr as he lay dying, it
could be exactly dated to the year 857, according to Ole Worm’s chro-
nology. Since the poetic language in Kråkumål and other skaldic poems
refers to Eddie mythology, it can thus be inferred, Nording maintained,
that the Edda was in existence at least 200 years before Sæmundr
(Nording 1735: 16).
Pre-Romanticism and Enlightenment
Far more influential than Nording’s learned dissertation were the writ-
ings of Paul Henri Mallet, a young Swiss professor of “Belles-Lettres
Fran£oises” in Copenhagen.42 His Introduction a l’histoire de Danne-
marc (1755) and Monumens de la mythologie et de la Poésie des C eltes
et particulierement des Andens Scandinaves (1756) were reissued in
Geneva and Paris, and his works were introduced to an English public
by Bishop Thomas Percy in the widely read Northern Antiquities in
1770. Mallet, more than anybody else, shaped the educated Europeans’
picture of Norse antiquities, which along with the influence of Ossian
was the most important component in the making of European Pre-
Romanticism (Tieghem 1924).43 Mallet was no great scholar, and he was
unable to read the Old Norse sources in the original (Mallet 1787:
42^43), but he was a very successful mediator, and he “happened to ap-
pear at what might be called the psychological moment” (Th. Beck
1934: 9). Mallet’s defence of the Edda had far-reaching consequences,
even if he was not very explicit in his argumentation:
42 On Mallet there is a vast literature, cf. among others Stadier 1924; Tieghem 1924; Th.
Beck 1934, 1935; Grape 1962: 66-82.
43 The title of Mallet 1756 demonstrates that he did not distinguish between the ancient
Celts and Scandinavians (cf. Mallet 1787: 10). On this point he was corrected by his Eng-
lish translator Bishop Percy in a lengthy introduction devoted to this question; cf. Th. Beck
1934: 11-12.