Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Qupperneq 238

218
Part Two
history.11 Since the whole sense of the test is based on an assumed
parallelism between skaldic and Eddie poetry, an inevitable conclu-
sion seems to be that, applied to particular Eddie poems, it would
lead to errors of the same kind.
We now return to Kuhn’s table of the use of the particle in Eddie poetry
(Table 5). In this table Kuhn has registered in sum 168 particles in a to-
tal of 892 stanzas, i.e. an average of 1.9 per 10 stanzas, or 0.19 per single
stanza. According to the norm, Prymskvida, which has 32 stanzas,
should thus have 0.19 • 32 = 6.0 particles, under the theoretical - and un-
realistic - assumption that it had an average frequency of particles. It ac-
tually has 22, and its observed deviation from the norm consequently is
22 - 6 = 16. Correspondingly, Hervararkvida should have 5.7 particles,
and since it has 0, the deviation is - 5.7.
Kuhn did not include Håvamål and the Helgi poems in his survey, be-
cause they consist, according to him, of parts which did not originally
belong together (Kuhn 1929: 87). It is common to regard Havamål as a
collection of poems and not one single poem, but there is no full consen-
sus regarding their delimitation. Kuhn’s solution, to sort them out, is
therefore tempting, but in order not to reduce unduly the statistical foun-
dation of the calculations, I have chosen the alternative solution, namely
to divide Havamål - somewhat arbitrarily - into three poems (I: st.
1-110, II: 111-37, and III: 138-64). The Helgi poems on the other hånd
are in the same situation as other Eddie poems which may or may not be
composed of heterogeneous elements. In most cases the assessment of
homogeneity within a poem is highly hypothetical, and the problem has
in my opinion been exaggerated by adherents of higher criticism. I
therefore prefer to stick to the texts as they are transmitted and delimited
in conventional criticism.
Another important problem, repeatedly mentioned by Kuhn (1929:
25, 70 n. 1, 120), is the likelihood that different scribes may have been
" Kuhn (1929: 80-81) has also pointed to the striking scarcity of the particle in horbjprn’s
poetry. - It is possible, of course, that at least parts of horbjqm’s poetry are spurious, and
belong to a later period, as has been surmised with good reasons for the latter part of
Haraldskvædi (von See 1961), but it would be against all sound method to redate on account
of this criterion in our context, because the means of dating presupposes an initial trust in
the datings of skaldic poetry. If parts of the skaldic corpus have to be redated, in this context
the criterion of the frequency of the particle must therefore be strietly exeluded.