Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Síða 296

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Part Two
will tend to bias the dates in a one-sided way, as it naturally follows that
this trick can apply only to younger poetry, and the number of instances
from later poetry will be reduced at the same time as the amount of older
instances is retained.
Their opinions differed also on the so-called Øxarflokkr by Einarr
Skulason, which contains numerous and elaborate allusions to heathen
myths. De Vries took this poem as an example of the 12th-century revi-
val, which led to an increase in the use of heathen kennings. However,
as these stanzas show Einarr’s most accomplished art, they are hardly
examples of a new beginning, Kuhn says. They continue a presumably
unbroken tradition from the pre-conversion period and can provide no
evidence that the increase in heathen kennings had begun during the
12th-century Renaissance.13 This is purely a matter of taste, de Vries re-
torted, and he for one was more struck by the difficulty on the part of the
poet in conceiving this array of kennings in imitation of old masters. In
contrast to Kuhn, he concluded that Einarr in this poem betrays an over-
eagemess, characteristic of the first essay in a new manner.14 We notice
that neither scholar has any difficulty in bending the evidence in the di-
rection that suits him best, but we have to remark that this manner of
reasoning invalidates any statistical evaluation of the material.15 In order
to draw a safe conclusion, the investigator obviously must take the
greatest care that his hypothesis does not in any possible way influence
the collection of his data. The discussion between these two scholars
does not make the critical reader very confident in this respect. But we
have also seen that even if de Vries here argues in favour of excluding
some of the data taken by Kuhn as support for his view, they have not in
faet been exeluded from his statistical survey.
13 “Einars Axtstrophen gehoren auBerdem zum Vollendetsten sowohl in seiner eigenen
reichen Dichtung als auch in der erorterten Kenningkunst und sind auch deshalb schwer-
lich ein neuer Anfang. Sie sind kein Zeugnis dafur, daB die neue Zunahme der heidnischen
Kenning in jenen Jahrzehnten begonnen hat” (Kuhn 1942: 149 = 1971a: 310).
14 “Das bleibt gewissermaBen Geschmackssache. Ich spiire in diesen Strophen viel mehr
die Mtihe, die es dem Dichter gekostet hat, alle diese Kenningen zu bilden oder vielmehr
altere Skalden nachzuahmen. [...] Der Eifer, mit dem er sich der alten skaldischen Prunk-
sprache bedient, ist wohl als Ubereifer zu kennzeichnen, wie das eben bei einem ersten
Versuch in einer neuen Manier zu sein pflegt” (de Vries 1956: 129-30).
15 Hamel had also expressed some unease at the facility with which counter evidence
could be made away with “door beroep op bijzondere omstandigheden” (Hamel 1934: 5).