Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Síða 50
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Part One
Vegtams-qvijia [Baldrs draumar], Al vis-mål, Fiol-svinns-mål, Hyndlv-
liof) (Voluspå hin skamma)”, and, in an appendix, “S61ar-liof>” (Edda
1787). The second volume was not published until 1818, and the edition
was completed by a third volume only in 1828. European scholars there-
fore felt increasingly impatient to see the “real thing”; particularly im-
portant were the Brothers Grimm in Germany,1 who in 1815 edited the
greater part of the heroic Eddie poems themselves, with an accurate
German translation by Wilhelm Grimm. To the great resentment of the
Grimms,2 the Berlin professor Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen had
managed to bring out an edition of mainly the same poems three years
earlier (1812), as a kind of continuation of his edition of the Nibelungen-
lied in 1807.3
The Anglo-Saxon theory
In this period an important evolution in the organization of the univer-
sities took place. In particular the foundation of the new University of
Berlin in 1810, which developed into a stronghold in Germanic studies,
was an important step. The same year the brilliant historian Friedrich
Riihs, who had been professor of history at the University of Greifswald
- where the contacts with Scandinavia were particularly good, since this
part of Pomerania belonged to Sweden from 1648 to 1815 - was pro-
moted to the professorship of history in Berlin. In 1812 he published a
translation of Snorri’s Edda with commentary, which gave rise to one of
the most heated debates in Eddie scholarship.
Riihs was a student of Schlozer, to whom he had dedicated his earlier
Scandinavian history (1801), praising him as a true enlightener;4 and as
a historian Riihs was one of his most important successors. Even though
1 Cf. W. Grimm 1811: 774 = 1881-87, vol. 2: 14.
2 J. and W. Grimm 1812b; cf. further references in Halldor Hermannsson 1920: 2.
3 His edition, Lieder der ålteren oder Samundischen Edda, had also the title Altnordische
Lieder und Sagen welche zum Fabelkreis des Heldenbuchs und der Nibelungen gehoren
(cf. Halldor Hermannsson 1920: 2).
4 “Wer, der den wohlthatigen EinfluG des Lichtes, das er anziindete, genofi, dankt ihm
nicht, daB er dort Helle verbreitete, wo vorher die tiefste Nacht ihre Wohnung zu haben
schien?” (Riihs 1801: [v]).