Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 165

VI From the turn of the century to Jan de Vries
145
During a period of no less than fifty years, from 1921 to 1971, the
year of his death, Birger Nerman published a series of articles discussing
different artefacts which might help in dating Eddie poetry, and in 1931
he published a monograph devoted to this subject, The Poetic Edda in
the light ofArchæology. Already in 1913 he had written a thesis on the
heathen literature of Sweden, where he argued against the “Viking Age
theory” of Bugge and Schiick (Nerman 1913: 16) and among other
things proposed a somewhat earlier date for Hjålmarskvida (Hjalmars
dddssång) than that usually assumed, namely not later than the llth cen-
tury (Nerman 1913: 154—56).65
In his article on VQlundarkvida in 1921, Nerman pointed to the faet
that gold plays a far more prominent role in the poem than silver. Since
gold is the metal most typical of the so-called older period of migrations
(400-550), while silver is typical of the Viking Age, a period poor in
Scandinavian gold findings, Nerman concluded that the mention of
these precious metals in VQlundarkvida seems to mirror the historical
conditions of the older period of migrations. It is to be noted that Ner-
man attached less importance to the evidence deduced from the abun-
dance of gold in the poem, which may have been a literary motif, than to
the scarcity of silver, which in his opinion was difficult to reconcile with
the historical conditions of the Viking Age (Nerman 1921: 156-57; cf.
1931: 62).
On the other hånd, Nerman interpreted an expression in st. 5 of
VQlundarkvida, “hann slo guli rautt vi5 gim fåstan”,66 as denoting the
goldsmith’s technique known as verroterie cloisonnée, a technique of
setting precious stones in gold-latten well known from the period
300-700, but extremely rare in the following period. Consequently this
expression must have been coined before 700, which proves that the leg-
end of Vqlundr was known in Scandinavia before that time. If the ex-
pression is not borrowed in VQlundarkvida from an older poem, it may
indicate that the actual poem should be dated to the same period (Ner-
man 1921: 157-60; cf. 1931: 32-37; 1971: 24—26). In his book Nerman
referred to the earlier studies by himself and his predecessors and made
emedan de verkliga ringsvarden, med rorlig ring på hjaltet, endast tillhora den tiden”
(Montelius 1921: 42).
65 Later on he dated it to the 6th century (cf. Nerman 1958b: 32).
66 Ed. Kuhn (1962): gimfastan.