Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 223
and Introduction to Part Two
203
As for the Eddie poems, we have to assume that since they are metri-
cal texts, the liberty of exchanging word forms during the process of
transmission is somewhat restricted by the rules of the verse. At least in
two instances it is possible to venture a reconstruction of the original
language on metrical grounds, the reconstitution of words beginning
with vr- and of non-contracted forms: “[...] the powerful sound laws and
rules of meter that had been discovered [...] might serve, like Chemical
reagents, to put a text in chronological perspective: ‘effaced linguistic
forms are conjured up again by the meter as if by means of Chemical re-
agents’.”15 In this case it is the very process of the renewing of the lan-
guage in oral transmission, which, in conjunction with the metrical
rules, provides a clue to the interpretation of the language in terms of
chronology.
The last linguistic question to be studied is the boundary between
Proto-Norse and Old Norse as an assumed terminus post quem for Eddie
poetry.
Also from the stylistic point of view skaldic poetry gives the safest
basis for comparison with Eddie poetry, but in my opinion the manner in
which it is applied is often too simple in so far as there is a tendency to
assume a straightforward correlation between a high frequency of skal-
dic stylistic features and a later date. In a later chapter, we will discuss
the possible relevance in our context of the use of skaldic kennings, syl-
labic verse construction and so on. Under the general stylistic heading is
also a chapter discussing the relevance of presumed loans from one
poem into another.16
Lastly, two particular hypotheses, which have already been com-
mented on in a rather superficial manner will be examined in a more
systematic way, first and foremost in order to detect to what extent the
statistical reasoning inherent in these hypotheses will stand up to expli-
cit serutiny.
15 Amos 1980: 6-7, referring to Gregor Sarrazin 1913: 3-4, “ahnlich wie durch chemische
Reagentien werden erloschene Sprachformen durch die Metrik wieder hervorgezaubert.”
16 As noted above, p. 201, the two chapters on stylistic criteria were not completed. Ed.