Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 194
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Part One
his chapter headings applies rather loosely to Eddie poetry. Never-
theless, in our context the main point is that his “synchronic” method
pennits an unprecedented description of the historical development of
Eddie poetry.
In the chapter on the prehistoric period, the author discussed the “sim-
ple form” - renamed in the second edition of the Altnordische Literatur-
geschichte “early and minor forms of poetry”,109 perhaps to avoid an un-
desirable association with Jolles’s conception “einfache Formen”. The
simple forms are not real poems, but various pulur, memorial poetry and
alliterative formulas, of a kind found over great parts of the Germanic
world. An early example is the series of eponyms of Germanic tribes
quoted by Tacitus (cf. de Vries 1941: 13). Poetry of this primitive kind is
naturally attested at an extremely early date, but as Heusler too had re-
peatedly stated, this does not mean that the relevant texts are necessarily
old; and de Vries was well aware that texts of this kind were composed
during the whole period of Old Norse literature. In other words this kind
of poetry is hardly accessible to any discussion from a historical point of
view. Perhaps it is asking too mueh to demand a historie treatment of
prehistoric literature!
In the following chapter, where the heroic poems Hlgdskvida,
Hamdismål, Atlakvida and Vglundarkvida are treated, de Vries ventured
far back into history, however, assigning to these poems an origin as ear-
ly as the Gothic poetry of the 6th century. Before the Ostrogoths migrat-
ed from Eastern Europe to Italy in the beginning of the 6th century, there
were contacts between the Goths and the (later) Scandinavians, he main-
tained, and because the Gothic poetry on the death of Attila is a creation
of the 5th century, the import of Gothic legends to Scandinavia can be
dated to ca. 500. On the evidence of surmised East Scandinavian 6th-
century poetic sources for Beowulf, he postulated an East Scandinavian
missing link between the Goths and the West Scandinavians (de Vries
1941:49-50).
The treatment of the prehistory of Vplundarkvida may serve as an ex-
ample of these bold historical constructions: a Gothic song on Vglundr
moved northwards and was transferred probably into an East Scandi-
navian language. About 600 the legend had reached the North Sea coast,
109 “Die einfachen Formen” (de Vries 1941: 12); “Friih- und Kleinformen der Dichtung”
(de Vries 1964: 12).