Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 298

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Part Two
some cases de Vries actually discusses philological problems in the
text in question, now and then questioning whether Finnur Jonsson
has assigned it to the proper period, but in most cases he sticks to the
decisions laid down in Skjaldedigtning, even if he in some cases ad-
mits his personal doubts (cf. de Vries 1934a: 52).
In spite of the importance of these objections, I do not think that they
compel us to dismiss de Vries’s statistics altogether. Even if the weight
of his evidence is less than it could have been, it may nevertheless have
some real significance, provided that the investigation is executed in a
proper manner. In the following I therefore proceed to a doser investi-
gation of de Vries’s statistics.
De Vries gives the most elaborate treatment to skaldic references to
the god OSinn, the other deities being more superficially treated. Only in
the case of OSinn is the documentation so full that the critic is in a posi-
tion to control the material basis of the figures from which the conclu-
sions are drawn.
On pp. 53-54 de Vries summarizes his results in a table and a graph
showing how often OSinn is mentioned in skaldic poetry from
850-1350, the total spån of time being grouped into ten periods of fifty
years each.17 The most conspicuous aspect of the graph is, as already
mentioned, a very marked peak in the period 950-1000. As it happens,
there is a miscalculation in the figures conceming this very period. De
Vries had calculated 132 to be 37.85% of 474, whereas it should be
27.85%, and the error is reproduced in the graphs on pp. 54 and 68. Nev-
ertheless, the main profile of his graph will not be totally disturbed, as
this period still rises considerably over the following and preceding
periods, and I reproduce his table as Table 17 and his graph as Figure 1,
after having corrected this error.
17 The material consists not only of kennings mentioning OSinn, but also of phrases like
Odinn hlaut val. Four particular instances from about the year 1000, where OSinn is men-
tioned in a negative way from a Christian point of view are excluded (cf. de Vries 1934a:
50-51).