Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 340

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Part Two
exact correspondences in pre-classical Old Norse, and they seem to be
close to ballad vocabulary. If the motif is a new one, however, it is dif-
ficult to find a suitable ground for comparison on which to evaluate the
vocabulary, and its significance is therefore difficult to assess.
The psychological situation expressed by the tapestry scenes is a
mouming over past events, and this situation has its characteristic vo-
cabulary, e.g. hQndum slå, which is frequent in Danish ballads and well-
known from German poetry, but is not used in Old Norse poetry outside
the elegies. Mohr treats in all 14 words belonging to the same “word
field” - gestures and words of pain, some of which are found to point in
the same direction.
Another ballad word, the verb svelta in the West-Germanic meaning
‘die’, also found in ballads, had been commented upon by Kuhn (1939:
208 = 1969: 506-07). Others, like the adjective sorgmodr, have corre-
spondences in younger Icelandic prose or religious poetry. Outside this
word field the expression at fringi in a general sense, ‘where people
come together’ is foreign to Old Norse but typical for Danish ballads,
and it is found in this group.
Mohr’s articles are too rich in detail to be satisfactorily summarized,
but I think he has successfully demonstrated the closeness of some of
the poems in this group (at least Gudrunarkvida I and II, and Oddrunar-
grdtr) to Danish ballads. His reconstruction of the literary prehistory of
the group involves too many unknown factors to be proved, or even to
be likely, but in this context we are concerned with their history only,
and the question is whether the correspondences with motifs and
vocabulary in Danish ballads can be taken as a clue to the age and origin
of the poems. If the hypothesis of a novelistic “Spielmannslied” as a
common ancestor to these Eddie poems and to Danish ballads is ac-
cepted, it may be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Eddie poems
originated not far from Denmark in a period roughly contemporaneous
with the oldest Danish ballads. This is Mohr’s opinion,32 but it is to be
noted that he is vague on the question of dating, and presents his view as
mere “Vermutungen” (Mohr 1939: 210). If the “Spielmannslied” hy-
pothesis is not accepted, however, the question of place and time
remains open, and we note that Mohr himself warns most sensibly
32 “Der Entstehungsort der Elegien ist am ehesten Danemark im 12. Jahrhundert” (Mohr
1938: 280).