Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 139

VI From the turn of the century to Jan de Vries
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seemed to be established. Where the skalds Gfsl Illugason or Ivarr
Ingimundarson gave the absolute point of departure for the dating, the
relevant spån of time was so short, Neckel maintained, that this relative
chronology came close to being an absolute chronology. On this basis he
assigned Helreid Brynhildar, Hjålmarskvida (Hjalmars Sterbelied),
Gudrunarkvida III, Helgakvida Hjgrvardssonar and Vglundarkvida (in
its revised form) to the 12th century, and Oddrunargråtr, Sigurdarkvida
in skamma, Brot af Sigurdarkvidu and Gudrunarkvida II to the first half
of the 13th century, while Hervar ar kvida (Hervgrlied), Rigspula,
Hyndluljod, Grottasgngr (revised form), VIkarsbålkr (revised form) and
Hrokskvida (Hrokslied) are supposed to be still later (Neckel 1908:466).
A general problem in the application of the criterion of verbal loans is
the failure to argue firstly for the relevance of some similarity or other,
and secondly for the direction of the borrowing, once the relevance of the
similarity is recognized. Even if the reader feels convinced that the simi-
larity cannot be fortuitous, it remains to prove which poem is borrowing
and which is lending - if both are not borrowing from a third source. Very
often Neckel felt all too confident that the examples would speak for
themselves,23 and only in rare cases did he bother to argue for a specific
loan. One of his best examples is the relation between Gudrunarkvida III
and Prymskvida, where the endings of the two poems are quite similar:
Gudrunarkvida III, st. 10.1-4:
Hlo JjåAtla
hugr 1 briosti
er hann heilar så
hendr Gubrunar
Gudrunarkvida III, st. 11.7-8:
Svå Jrå GuSrun
sinna harma.
Prymskvida, st. 31.1-4:
Hlo HlorriSa
hugr f briosti
er harbhugabr
hamar um {)ecf)i
Prymskvida, st. 32.9-10:
Svå kom 05ins sonr
endr at hamri.
Apart from the problems of interpretation in Gudrunarkvida III 11.7-8,
this parallel is striking in so far as there is some likeness in two succes-
sive stanzas; but Neckel did not bother to argue for Gudrunarkvida III
23 Cf. e.g.: “Folgende parallelstellen beweisen genug: Hu II 35,7-8 ~ I 21,7-8” etc.
(Neckel 1908: 467).