Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 101
V Nordic debate in the period of Scandinavianism
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poems are pre-Icelandic. Skaldic poetry shows that Norway had a poetic
flowering in the (8th,) 9th and lOth centuries, characterized by an artifi-
cial poetic form, and, according to Grundtvig, some late Eddie poems
might belong to this period, heroic poems like Atlamål, and some of the
allegorical mythical poems, in particular those concentrating on the god
Eorr, such as Hymiskvida. The main heroic and mythological poetry
belongs to an older age, however, anterior to the known skalds, and the
origin of Eddie poetry is lost in a common “Gothic” period, not in
Norway, but in the Southern and more densely populated parts of Scan-
dinavia, inhabited by Danes, Goths and Swedes. Nothing exeludes the
Norwegians from having some part in the poetry of this period, but in
any case it is a period anterior to the “norrøn” (West-Nordic) separation
from the common Nordic tribe (cf. Grundtvig 1866-67: 541—42, 604).
Referring to ChristianThomsen’s archaeological periodisation, Grundt-
vig stated that the Eddie golden age coincided with the period named
the Oldest or Middle Iron Age by archaeologists, whereas the Viking
Age at most can be called the literary silver age of northem antiquity.
(There is some confusion in Grundtvig’s metallic metaphors, but it may
be noted that archaeologists also sometimes characterize the Viking
period as a “silver age”, following upon an older period richer in gold
finds, the time of the great migrations.) In Iceland, finally, followed “a
late summer, when people were busy bringing in the golden harvest of
olden times”.20 The arguments adduced by Grundtvig in support of a
South Scandinavian origin of the Eddie poems in the Older or Middle
Iron Age thus helped to back up Keyser’s view on the relatively old age of
the Edda. In the hard debate which was to follow, it was the age of the
poems, rather than their place of origin, that was to be the bone of conten-
tion, and that is why in a historical perspective Keyser and Grundtvig
appear as companions in arms rather than antagonists.
20 “[...] det hedenske Nordens rigeste åndstid, dets literære guldalder, der falder sammen
med den af oldforskningen såkaldte ældste og mellemste jærnalder, den er netop udløben
ved vikingtogenes indtrædelse sidst i 8de århundrede, så vikingtiden kan i det hojeste blive
det gamle Nordens literære sølvalder, med den ældste, måské fornemmelig norske skjalde-
digtning, allegori og genealogi og begyndende sagadannelse, hvorpå først senere, efter at
den ved de politiske omvæltninger og den religjøse overgang foranledigede gæring har sat
sig, følger i folkeverdenens yderste udkant, på Island, en eftersommer, der blandt andet be-
nyttes til at bringe i hus, hvad sankes kan af de svundne tiders gyldne høst. Således viser den
oldnordiske literaturs historie sig, set i idéens lys; og i enhver anden belysning er al historie,
hvad Petersen [...] kalder ‘et uendelig kaos’” (Grundtvig 1866-67: 557).