Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 251

VIII “VinSandin forna'
In preliterary Old (West) Norse, words beginning in vr- lost their initial
v-, thus creating a distinet isogloss between the West Norse and the East
Norse languages. In Old Norse manuscripts therefore no word beginning
in vr- normally occurs. In a number of cases this linguistic change has af-
feeted the alliteration, however, so that the forms in vr- must be restored
in order to get normal metric forms. Very early in the history of Eddie
scholarship it was observed that this might serve as a criterion for dating,
in the sense that poems containing such cases were supposed to antedate
the shift. On the other hånd, the introduction of etymological v- would
spoil the alliteration of a number of verses, which would therefore appear
to postdate the shift. Jacob Grimm appears to have been the first to com-
ment upon this phenomenon,1 and in 1847 P. A. Munch and C. R. Unger
had in a brief introduction to Old Norse metrics mentioned that words be-
ginning in r-, which earlier had begun in vr- “in reality” alliterated with
words beginning in v-, quoting as examples Atlakvida st. 2.3-4 and
Baldrs draumar st. 11.1-2 (in the form (V)rindr berr i vestrsolum).2
The issue was more extensively discussed by Svend Grundtvig and
Edwin Jessen in the great debate in the 1860s (cf. p. 84 above). Grundt-
vig, who believed that Eddie poetry originated in the Iron Age, took the
occurrences of Eddie word-forms in (reconstructed) vr- as a confirma-
tion of his view that the Edda preceded skaldic poetry by centuries. In
skaldic poetry forms in r-, alliterating with r-, may be found already in
the 9th and lOth centuries. An earlier origin for words in vr- bound by
alliteration is possible, however, but then they would testify to East Nor-
1 “Spuren eines altn. vr. weist aber wieder die alliteration, in der edda wird vega so oft
mit reidhr gebunden [...], daB an der allen anstand losenden aussprache vreidhr nicht zu
zweifeln ist” (J. Grimm 1822: 311; cf. Konrad Gfslason 1870: 79: “Grimm, der vistnok er
den egentlige nyere Opdager af det gamle VR- i Oldnordisk”).
2 Munch and Unger 1847a: 109; cf. also Rosselet 1855: 287; Gudbrandur Vigfusson
1864: xlix-1.