Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 142
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Part One
the actual poems from before 800 were preserved, only that their main
content and some linguistic remnants had been taken over by Old Norse
poems. It is nevertheless interesting to note that the pre-Viking period,
which had been removed from the discussion on the age of the Eddie
poems by Bugge and his generation, was reintroduced once more as a
seminal “Eddie” period.
A final reason why it is difficult to endorse Neckel’s datings is his ad-
herence to the methods of “higher criticism”, which raises important
questions of principle. In particular his analysis of Atlakvida, which is a
central part of his study, is a model of and testing ground for criticism of
this type. Less exhaustive analyses are devoted to Gudrunarhvgt, Grot-
tasQngr, Hamdismål, Vgluspå, Brot af Sigurdarkvidu, Vikarsbålkr and
the two versions of Hjålmarskvida (Neckel 1908: 219, 299-303,
303-07, 329^13, 345-48, 351-58, 458-65).
According to Neckel, Atlakvida is to be broken down into no fewer
than six different parts, only two of which comprise a large number of
stanzas, while another two are represented only by one stanza or less.
The composition of Neckel’s patch-work is shown in Table 2.
The oldest layer, which comprises somewhat less than one quarter of
the poem is characterized by simple and forceful diction without
kennings or artificial imagery; the second and third are pula-like enu-
merations; the fourth, which comprises more than half the poem, is par-
ticularly rich in adjectives and pictorial descriptions, thereby drawing
nearer to skaldic style; this feature is even more typical of the fifth layer;
finally, the sixth layer, consisting in only one stanza, is a beautiful ex-
ample of soft, melodious lyricism (Neckel 1908: 169-73).