Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 339
XII Foreign matter poems
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treated, while in the second each poem is discussed with reference to the
same criteria, which in my opinion is the disposition that is most likely
to yield unbiased results. Mohr himself was well aware that very few of
his arguments could lead to unambiguous or unquestionable results, and
he chose not to exclude arguments that he himself found weak, if they
might nevertheless be considered valid. Parts of his treatment are in my
opinion models of cogent reasoning, where each piece of evidence is
scrutinized in turn, in relation to different modes of classification and
explanation, and conclusions are then drawn on the basis of a summary
of the separate points.
At First Mohr highlighted the confused geographical notions in the
group in question, which are explained by the faet that the younger
poems were less in touch with their South Germanic origin. The events
tend to be located somewhere in “the south”, and the Rhine is believed
to be an ocean; to sunnan Rinar in Brot af Sigurdarkvidu 5 corresponds
fyr handan ver in Gudrunarkvida II 7. A corresponding geographical
vagueness is found in Danish ballads.
A motif typical of this group of poems is “heroines’ needlework”,
found in Gudrunarkvida II, Oddrunargråtr, Helreid Brynhildar (as well
as the hypothetical *Meiri and *Falkenlied). GuSbrandur Vigfusson and
F. York Powell (Corp. Poet. Bor. 1883, vol. 1: lviii-lxi) had also defined
a group of Eddie poems, assigned to the “tapestry poet”, pointing out re-
semblances with the ballads, also in the specific use of words like bur in
the meaning ‘bower’. This theme Mohr developed further, showing that
the embroidery scene is a motif typical of ballads, a type scene funetion-
ing as a symbol for inner, psychological events. In Gudrunarkvida II
and Oddrunargråtr it is more or less a blind motif, however, whose nar-
rative funetion is hard to understand unless it is compared with cor-
responding scenes in ballads; Mohr concluded that it is derived from
some pre-form of the ballads.31 This result seems to be corroborated by
a study of the vocabulary; words like hlada spjgllum, gøra guil have no
31 “Es ist Handlungssymbol fur das Seelische, das in dem Menschen vorgeht” (Mohr
1938: 233).
“Vom Motiv her lieB sich bisher zeigen, daB die Handarbeitszene in der Folkevise oft
handlungsmaBig begrundet ist, in der Edda meist nicht. Das deutet darauf hin, daB die
Edda der Folkevise gegentiber sekundar ist - natiirlich nicht der uns iiberlieferten Folkevi-
se, sondem einer Vorstufe, in der auch bereits Motiv und Handlung verbunden waren”
(Mohr 1938: 235).