Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 114

94
Part One
as Jon Helgason later put it.41 The principal fault of the two Scandin-
avian scholars was not that they argued against an Icelandic origin, but
that in general they considered an Icelandic origin as unthinkable due to
their view of the age of the Eddie poetry. What was needed at this stage
was no longer all-inclusive judgements, according to Mobius, but care-
ful studies of particular poems.42 In this regard he drafted a programme
for the future (on this discussion, cf. Finnur Jonsson 1894: 4-5; 1920:
3-5).
In 1867 Maurer had referred to his close friend GuSbrandur Vigfus-
son for a relatively late dating of the Eddie poems. According to
GuSbrandur, Maurer said, the poems Skimismål, Hårbardsljod and
Lokasenna were not composed before the end of the lOth century, the
greater part of the poetry on the Vplsungs not before the llth or 12th
centuries, and Solarljod in the 14th century (Maurer 1869: 58). Apart
from a remark on Solarljod (see below, p. 236 n. 12), GuSbrandur had
not yet published anything conceming this matter, but Maurer knew his
opinion from proofsheets of GuSbrandur’s dictionary (Maurer 1870:
441). In the second entry of the dictionary, published in 1869 (cf. Svavar
Sigmundsson 1989: 302), which treated the negative suffix -al-atl-t,
GuSbrandur stated his opinion very briefly, attributing the three mytho-
logical poems in question to the same author (Cleasby and Vigfusson
1874: 2). The context - a dictionary entry - indicates that GuSbrandur
based his dating principally on details of word history.
In a wider context, GuSbrandur Vigfusson discussed the age and ori-
gin of the Eddie poems in his important introduction to Sturlunga saga
(1878), and above all in the first volume of his complete edition of Old
Norse poetry in Corpvs Poeticvm Boreale (1883). GuSbrandur posited in
a general way that the linguistic boundary between Proto-Nordic and
41 “Den eneste absolut sikre kendsgerning er, at digtene er overleverede i islandske
håndskrifter, hvoraf det vigtigste er fra 13. årh. Bevisbyrden påhviler den, der vil søge de-
res oprindelse i ældgamle tider eller fjerne egne” (Jon Helgason 1953: 96).
42 “Einmal: wie haltlos doch alle diese ansichten und meinungen iiber ort und zeit der
lieder der Sæmundar Edda bleiben mussen, so lange man sich nicht die miihe genommen,
jedes einzelne lied in beiderlei beziehung nach allen hier in betracht kommenden kriteri-
en zum gegenstand einer besondem untersuchung zu machen; wie waren so einseitige ur-
teile moglich, nach denen hervorstechende eigentiimlichkeiten des einen liedes zugleich
massgebend fur zeit- und ortbestimmung aller der ubrigen sein sollen” (Mobius 1869:
434-35).