Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 175

VI From the tum of the century to Jan de Vries
155
accessible to historical analysis, and in this case the old rules seem to
have lost their hold altogether in the 14th century. But within the clas-
sical period, poems in drottkvætt and hrynhent are shown to behave in
much the same way throughout the centuries, whereas certain variations
may be found in the minor metres. One important group of skaldic
poems is set apart, however; namely, the three so-called Eddie praise
poems from around 900, Haraldskvædi, Håkonarmål and Eiriksmål.
While the most obvious dividing line within Eddie poetry was drawn be-
tween poetry in Ijodahåttr and in fornyrdislag, a new concept was creat-
ed by drawing a dividing line according to content within the poetry in
fornyrdislag, separating poems on subject matter of south Germanic
origin on the one hånd, from other poems in fornyrdislag on the other.
The first of these groups was named “Fremdstofflieder”74 - in the fol-
lowing, for the sake of brevity, they will be called “foreign”, as opposed
to “domestic”, poems.
With this word, Kuhn had coined a new concept, which was to have
a great impact on Eddie studies, comparable to the form categories
worked out by Heusler and others in the preceding generation. In par-
ticular, it was eagerly seized upon by Wolfgang Mohr, who tried to
confirm Kuhn’s conception by a series of new observations. It was also
taken up by de Vries in his history of Old Norse literature, which was
to appear only a few years later.
As far as the first article is concemed, the main reason for Kuhn’s re-
grouping of Eddie poetry was the observation that the “domestic” poems
in fornyrdislag tended to follow the main bulk of skaldic poetry in pre-
serving old stress pattems applying to the sentence particle, whereas the
“foreign” group aligned with the poetry in Ijodahåttr in a more relaxed
attitude towards these rules, thus representing a more advanced State of
the language - which does not necessarily mean that the poems as such
were later.75 Similarly, in contrast to “domestic” poems in fornyrdislag,
74 “Die dichtung stidgermanischer sagenstoffe im fornyrdislag [...] Ich
nenne diese gruppe der kiirze halber die fremdstofflieder der Edda. Zu ihnen gehoren
Vglundarkvida, alle lieder und liederteile im fornyrdislag im codex regius von Grfpisspå
bis Hamdismål, die in der Volsungensaga iiberlieferten strophen (Edda bruchstiicke II)
und in den Eddica minora Hunnenschlachtlied, Hildibrands sterbelied und die halb-
strophe bruchstiicke C, zusammen etwa 2200 langzeilen” (Kuhn 1933: 36-37 = 1969:
46).