Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 349
Editor’s postscript
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small. The weighting can be performed in many standard statistical
software packages, by including a separate weight variable, equal to
the number of lines (or verses) in each poem.
Although Fidjestøl’s use of “reduction” is not entirely in place, the
result is likely to be conservative, thus usually producing a smaller
correlation coefficient. In faet, when recomputing the (weighted) cor-
relation coefficients, we obtain p = 0.75 for the skaldic poetry, but p =
0.44 for Jonsson’s ranking of the Eddie poems and p = 0.24 for Son-
deregger’s, thus Fidjestøl’s further discussions are not invalidated.
It is, however, also interesting to note that the correlation between
the age rankings of Sonderegger and of Jonsson is p = 0.64, so it may
seem that they are doser to one another than to the ranking based on
relative frequencies.
Finally, it should also be mentioned that more sophisticated
methods may well be used. For instance, logistic regression may be
appropriate, yielding more detailed information. In this case, the age
ranks of the poems could possibly be replaced by more exact dates (if
available). Related chi-squared tests are also available to test for
trends in a dichotomous response.
5. Ranking of poets in Chapter VII
When preparing Table 7 in Chapter VII, it appears that Professor Fidje-
støl has exchanged the particle ranks of Amorr jarlaskåld and PjoSolfr
Amorsson and also those of Håttalykill and Røgnvaldr jarl. This obvi-
ously goes back to the preparatory version published in Finn Hødnebø’s
Festschrift (Fidjestøl 1989: 57). Table 7 has now been amended in this
respect. Furthermore, skalds who have identical rank of age and rank of
particle, d2, in Table 7 are listed according to their age, in agreement
with Table 6 in the same chapter. An explanatory note on the principle of
ranking has been added on p. 214 (n. 9).
6. Einar Olafur Sveinsson’s dating of Eddie poetry
In the Festschrift for Finn Hødnebø, Professor Fidjestøl refers very
briefly to the dating of Einar Olafur Sveinsson (1962), discussed by