Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Qupperneq 182

162
Part One
family feeling in the religious sentiments underlying this group of
poems,86 he continued, as a natural consequence, by gathering the in-
stances where men are characterized as “children”. Different variants of
the circumlocution “sons of men” for ‘human beings’ are very frequent
in Eddie poetry in general, and they are by no means restricted to de
Boor’s “Vgluspå-related group”. Two aspects of the way they are used in
this group he found significant, however. On the one hånd, the word
som is sometimes varied by the synonyms kind, barn and mggr, and, on
the other, people may be characterized also as “gods’ children” (de Boor
1930: 73 = 1964: 215-16).
Concerning the variation of the word som, de Boor admitted that the
variants in question are not particularly frequent within this group -
barn occurring in a relevant context only once and mggr being no less
frequent outside the group than within it, in mythic as well as in heroic
poetry.87 Starting from an interpretation of one obscure instance from
Lokasenna, he nevertheless concluded that the word mggr, in spite of its
relatively low frequency, has to be credited with a special stylistic value
for the group in question.88 Kind is noted twice in the Vgluspå-related
group outside Vgluspå, and once in a heroic poem (Gudrunarkvida II, st.
31).
The analysis of the argument concerning expressions like “sons of
gods” is complicated by the faet that they may be interpreted either as
‘gods’ or as ‘men’. While preferring the latter interpretation where pos-
sible because this reading is supposed to express the feeling that gods
and men belong to one single family, de Boor stressed that also when the
expression is taken in the former interpretation, gods, it brings to the
86 “Denn die typische, nicht vereinzelte Bezeichnung eines Gottes als ‘Vater’ wird nicht
von ungefahr geschaffen; sie setzt namentlich bei einem Volke voll starksten Sippenemp-
findens eine lebendige religiose Vorstellung voraus, die dahinter steht” (de Boor 1930: 72
= 1964: 214). To this group, cf. Kuhn 1971b: 2.
87 “barn bleibt freilich neben der Vsp.-Bildung alda bgrnum (20, 11) ohne weitere Paral-
lele” (de Boor 1930: 73 = 1964: 216); “Denn es ist unverkennbar, dass auch das Simplex
mggr als solches fur die Vsp. und ihren Kreis eine besondere Bedeutung hat. [...] Aber es
ist auch sonst in mythischer wie heroischer Dichtung ein haufiges Wort; Lieder wie Skf.,
G5r. I, Fm., Oddr. sind nicht weniger reich daran” (de Boor 1930: 75 = 1964: 217).
88 “Immerhin werden wir ihm [the word mggr] im Gegensatz zu sonr und barn stil-
pragende Kraft fur unseren Kreis zubilligen mussen. - Lasst sich so die reiche Variation
des Begriffes ‘Menschenkinder’ und insbesondere die Verwendung von mggr und kind als
Eigentumlichkeit unseres Kreises erweisen, so gilt das in verstarktem Masse fur die reli-
giose Steigerung, ‘Kinder einer Gottheit’” (de Boor 1930: 75 = 1964: 217).