Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 168

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Part One
this. I see no reason why such poems should not be dated as late as
700, so far as this evidence is concemed. Poems in which only silver
is mentioned (Rigspula) belong no doubt to the Viking Age, which is
also the Silver Age (800-1050). But gold finds increase again after
800, though gold is now less abundant than silver; hence so far as this
evidence is concemed Brymslcvida [sic], Grimnismål, Atlakvida, Atla-
mål, Sigrdrifumål, Gudrunarkvida II and the VqI undar kvida will also
belong to the (early) Viking Age (800-900). But there remain twenty-
five poems in which silver is not mentioned and gold plays a promi-
nent role (in a few poems neither is mentioned). I do not see why
these poems, so far as this evidence is concemed, may not have been
composed during the Viking Age. Since both metals were known in
the Viking Age but gold was more scarce than silver, it seems to me
that the poets of this age might very naturally have regarded gold as
the more precious metal, and given it a prominent place in the divine
saga (Flom 1932: 141-42).
Flom made no distinction in his review between the two poems on
Atli, although Nerman had pointed to a interesting difference between
them, in so far as Atlakvida is relatively rich in gold and Atlamål in
silver, indicating a pre-Viking date for the former and a Viking Age
date for the latter, a result which is the more striking as it corresponds
to the general opinion that Atlamål is a later reworking of Atlakvida
(Nerman 1931: 56-58, 61-63). The predominance of silver over gold
in Atlamål is statistically extremely feeble, however, “the former being
mentioned three times (and indicated once), the latter only twice”
(Nerman 1931: 63, cf. p. 58; 1963b: 132); and thus it can hardly war-
rant any positive conclusions. I agree with Flom that the least dubious
conclusion is the ascribing of poems in which only silver is mentioned
to the Viking Age, in particular because this applies to Rigspula, which
seems to be uncommonly accurate in its description of material cul-
ture. In this case the evidence is even more feeble in quantitative
terms, however, as silver is mentioned only once (cf. Nerman 1931:
29-31, 63).
Against the presumption that repeated mention of gold in a poem
might testify against its Viking Age origin, we might adduce the evid-
ence of the skaldic poetry of this period, where gold very heavily pre-
dominates over silver in the kennings, evidently out of sheer poetic con-