Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 200
180
Part One
nyms in Alvissmål serve a poetological end, Hyndluljod is a poem of
praise, offering to its hero a stately genealogy, and Vgluspd in skamma
renews the memory of the downfall of the heathen world, thereby justi-
fying Christianity. Hymiskvida and Prymskvida, which also belong to
this period, have, on the other hånd, no other reason for existence than
the joy of narration (“der Lust zum Fabulieren” - de Vries 1942: 129).
The myth is here diluted to fairy tale, composed by a poet well versed in
mythological poetry and endowed with the gift of telling a story in a
humorous way. Prymskvida is not only the funnier of the two poems, it
is also the later, already betraying the influence of ballad. Prymskvida
is an outstanding work of art, however, the best of its kind, and it
demonstrates that a late dating does not preclude the highest artistic
quality.118
Heroic poetry displayed a richer creativity than did religious poetry in
this period, due to a new influence from the German Nibelungen poetry,
which in some cases may admittedly be difficult to distinguish from the
poetry that reached Scandinavia in the dark centuries between the Great
Migrations and the Viking Age. To a greater extent than in the pre-
Viking period, however, the traces of a process of translation from Ger-
man to Scandinavian can be detected in metrics and style (de Vries
1942: 137; cf. the “Fremdstofflieder” hypothesis, pp. 153-57 above, and
chapter XII below).
Thus the history of heroic poetry to a certain extent manifests a dis-
continuity similar to that of religious poetry. But, as we have seen, the
gap between the two periods of importation of southem subject matter
was filled by the Helgi poetry of Scandinavian origin, whereas the his-
tory of religious poetry just had an empty interval.
Compared to the first great heroic period, the younger poems are im-
bued with a more sentimental spirit, which is shown already in Brot af
Sigurdarkvidu, dated to about 1100, e.g. in the motif of SigurSr’s
mouming horse. Another typical feature of the new wave is the interest
in the figure of Brynhildr, which is also present already in Brot af
Sigurdarkvidu. In general, there is a concentration on female figures, not
only Brynhildr, but above all GuSrun; and the new form of the retro-
spective poem, most often in form of a “one-sided” dialogue or mono-
118 “Die Spatzeit des Gotterliedes hat hier auch das Hochste geleistet, was in dieser Hin-
sicht iiberhaupt geschaffen worden ist” (de Vries 1942: 135).