Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 252

232
Part Two
die rather than West Nordic origin of the poems (Grundtvig 1866-67:
568-70, cf. 1869-70: 67-73). Jessen, on the other hånd, insisted on the
forms in r- where the metre exeludes an initial v-, and which Grundtvig
had relegated to a footnote. According to Jessen they demonstrated late
and West Nordic origin (Jessen 1867-69: 252-54; cf. 1869: 225-29;
1871: 27-31). In his article from 1871 Jessen concluded that Eddie
poetry in general was posterior to the shift vr- > r-, and without denying
that an instance like Vajprudnismdl st. 53.3 might be a verse taken over
unchanged from an older poem, he held that stray occurrences of forms
in vr- in the two words (v)reidr and (v)reka had to be explained as old
poetic formula or as attempts at archaization.3
Nearly all the relevant arguments were brought forward in this very
competent debate, but both scholars were in a violently polemical mood
defending their opposing views on the origin of Eddie poetry as such,
rather than trying to establish a test capable of distinguishing between
poems of different age.
It is no wonder that this test was discussed by philologists at an early
date, as it had already been commented upon in the 13th century by
Olåfr hvftaskåld in the Third Grammatical Treatise. In connection with a
verse by Egill Skallagrlmsson, lv. 47, which happens to be very difficult
to understand, Olåfr discusses the phenomenon which he calls prothesis,
and comments:
Hér er vi5 lagt v i Jtessu nafni, vrgngu, til Jtess at réttir sé stuSlar i
drottkvæSum hætti.4
(Here v is added to this word: vrgngu, in order to get correct allitera-
tion in the drottkvætt metre.)
3 “In den Eddaliedem nun hat man 8 unzweifelhafte beispiele des bewahrten vr auf-
gefunden [...] also nur fiir die beiden wdrter reka und reidr (nebst reidi), und so dass fiinf
dieser acht beispiele die uralte alliterierende formel (v)reidr vega enthalten, drei derselben
sogar buchstablich gleich lauten. Andrerseits finden sich mehr als doppelt so viele bei-
spiele des vor r abgeworfenen v. Das sieht zusammen so sonderbar aus, dass ich darin
nicht einmal direct kennzeichen einer ubergangsperiode oder der verschiedenheit norwe-
gischer dialecte erblicken mochte, sondem vielmehr in den fallen mit vr nur willkurliche
archaismen [...] Doch laugne ich nicht (z. b. bei Vafjmibn. 53) die moglichkeit unveran-
derter heriibemahme einer zeile aus einem åltem gedicht (Jessen 1871: 28-29).
4 Ed. Finnur Jonsson 1927: 61 (with textual variants) and comments, 1927: 100. Cf. also
ed. Bjdrn Magmisson Olsen 1884: 199.