Faulkes, Sources-of-Skaldskaparmal.pdf

ANTHONY FAULKES

THE SOURCES OF

SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL : SNORRI’S

INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND

Discussion of the sources of Skáldskaparmál in the past has mainly been

concerned with two related issues, first the accuracy with which Snorri

reproduces pre-Christian tradition in his work, and thus his reliability as

a witness to that tradition, and secondly the extent to which his work is

influenced by the Christian, Latin thought of the Middle Ages. With regard

to the first of these issues, there has been speculation about the possibility

that Snorri or people of his circle may actually have invented myths as

well as altering or modifying those they inherited from the past. One

particular aspect of the second issue is the question whether Snorri himself

could read Latin. Recent work has started from the assumption that he

could, and has concentrated on attempting to identify the Latin writings

he may have used (Margaret Clunies Ross 1987; Ursula and Peter Dronke

1977). Many scholars have taken for granted that Latin books would

have been available to Snorri; characteristic is Halldór Halldórsson in

Old Icelandic heiti in Modern Icelandic (1975), who, having pointed out

that Oddi, where Snorri was brought up, was a place where learning,

including Latin learning, had been highly developed in the 12th century,

says: ‘Of course, these points do not suffice to prove that Snorri knew

Latin. But the very fact that in the Skáldskaparmál he attempts to apply

certain classificatory principles to the stylistic devices used in Old

Icelandic and Old Norwegian poetry indicates some sort of schooling’

(p. 11), and adds in a footnote (on p. 12): ‘Most scholars who have dealt

with Snorra Edda, such as F. Jónsson, Heusler, Nordal, Meissner and

E. Ó. Sveinsson, disregard the question of whether Snorri knew classical

rhetoric or not . . . Stefán Einarsson is fully aware of the fact that Snorri

knew Latin . . . Unfortunately, St. Einarsson does not furnish any evidence

for his assertion, but I think he is right.’ It is one of the purposes of this

THE SOURCES OF SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL

paper to examine whether there is any evidence for the assertion, and

whether it can be upheld.

Skáldskaparmál consists mainly of a collection of extracts from poems

that illustrate the use of kennings for various things, and a collection of

narratives that purport to give the origins of various kennings; it begins

with a narrative about the origin of the poetic art itself. Part of the work

is in the form of a dialogue between Ægir and Bragi. This is probably

inspired by the account of the feast Ægir held for the gods described in

the prose introduction to Lokasenna ( PE 96), an episode also used by

Snorri in Skáldskaparmál ch. 33.

The poems Snorri quotes and the prose stories he retells were probably

all known to him from oral tradition; many of the prose narratives may

themselves be based on poems. It is possible that some had already been

written down by the time of Snorri’s work, though little trace of such

codification has survived. Some eddic poems, certainly, seem to have

existed in written form by about the beginning of the thirteenth century,

but the evidence indicates that skaldic verse, unless it was being newly

composed by a literate poet, was only written down in the form of

quotations embedded in prose narrative, and few of the verses Snorri

quotes in Skáldskaparmál had been already used in this way. He quotes a

huge number of verses in his Edda , and many more in Heimskringla , and

the survival of a large proportion of skaldic verse is due to its incorporation

in Snorri’s writings; he must have known an enormous amount of verse

by heart. It is presumed that he acquired much of this from his education

in the household of Jón Loptsson at Oddi.

Some parts of Skáldskaparmál are based on complete poems (or

substantial parts of them) either eddic or skaldic, for instance Rígsﬂula,

ﬁórsdrápa, Ragnarsdrápa, Húsdrápa, Grottasƒngr and other poems now

lost, e.g. one which gave information about the river Vimur. Snorri may

have known these either from oral tradition or from written versions, if

such existed in his time, though many of the longer verse quotations in

Skáldskaparmál have been suspected of being interpolations, since they

are not in all MSS and seem to upset the organisation of the work. The

same kind of sources are the main basis of Gylfaginning , however.

Some of the narratives in Skáldskaparmál are derived from earlier

written sagas. Most notable of such sources is Skjƒldunga saga , probably

compiled from poems and stories in the second half of the twelfth century

at Oddi to celebrate Jón Loptsson’s descent from the kings of Norway.

This saga must have been the primary model for Snorri’s Ynglinga saga

(he names it as a source, Heimskringla I, 57), and also provided material

THE SOURCES OF SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL

for the chapters in Skáldskaparmál on Hrólfr kraki and Fró›i and the

mill Grotti; whether he found the entire poem Grottasƒngr in the saga

too is difficult to say. The extracts from Bjarkamál may also be from this

saga, and also the account of Hja›ningavíg (see Finnur Jónsson, Edda

Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, lvi; the story also appears in Ragnarsdrápa ,

and a later literary version of it is found in Sƒrla ﬂáttr in Flateyjarbók ).

The chapters on otrgjƒld and the Gjúkungar are likely to be derived

from an earlier version of Vƒlsunga saga (though the Sigur›ar saga

mentioned in Háttatal was probably not a written source); there are also

similarities to the narratives part in prose and part in verse in the Poetic

Edda . The account of Hƒlgi and his burial (ch. 56) may be derived from

an early Hla›ajarla saga.

The genealogical chapters towards the end of Skáldskaparmál (ch. 64),

about Halfdan the old and his sons, have a relationship to a text that

probably, like Skjƒldunga saga , Vƒlsunga saga and Hla›ajarla saga ,

originated in learned historical writing of the late twelfth or early thirteenth

centuries: the fragment Hversu Noregr bygg›ist in Flateyjarbók I, 22–30

(another version of this, labelled Fundinn Noregr in editions of Fornaldar

sögur , forms an introduction to Orkneyinga saga in Flateyjarbók ). The

relationship of these texts with each other and with Snorra Edda cannot

be said to be clear (Finnbogi Gu›mundsson thought it possible that Snorri

himself compiled the present introduction to Orkneyinga saga , and that

the ﬂáttr Hversu Noregr bygg›ist in Flateyjarbók was a later redaction

of this), but the content seems at any rate to be native genealogical and

historical or mythological lore. Hyndluljó› may be another product of

the same kind of learned historical speculation.

The various lists of heiti in the latter part of Skáldskaparmál may be

partly based on already existing ﬂulur such as those that are included in

some manuscripts at the end of Skáldskaparmál , although Snorri must

have collected many items himself from skaldic poems that he knew and

from his own vocabulary. Twelfth-century poets like Einarr Skúlason

had already shown an interest in collecting lists of poetical expressions,

and Alvíssmál may be a product of the same kind of learned compilation.

It is difficult to be certain, however, which of the ﬂulur may actually be

based on Skáldskaparmál itself (or indeed have been compiled by Snorri).

The short collections of examples of poetic language printed by Finnur

Jónsson as Den lille Skálda ( Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, 255–9) may

also be older than Skáldskaparmál , or they may be extensions of Snorri’s

work, like the additions to Skáldskaparmál in Codex Wormianus , but it

is likely that Snorri was not the first to begin to classify and collect

THE SOURCES OF SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL

examples of poetic diction, just as Rƒgnvaldr Kali’s Háttalykill shows

that he was not the first to codify metrical variations.

The sources of Skáldskaparmál are therefore broadly of two kinds,

Norse poems, most of them at any rate originally oral, and learned, but

vernacular, historical writings of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

There does not seem any need to assume extensive oral prose stories or

folk-tales among Snorri’s sources: the above list seems to account for

most of his material. Where he seems to narrate myths that go beyond

the extant poetical versions it is likely that he has expanded on hints in

poems known to him, as for instance when he expands a rather obscure

reference in Vafﬂrú›nismál into a story of a flood ( Gylfaginning ch. 7)—

though in some cases his expansions may be partly based on folk-tales or

be paraphrases of lost poems. Many of his narratives should perhaps be

described as reconstructions of myths (similar to the reconstructions of

history we find in sagas) based on allusions and hints in early poems,

such as the story of the origin of poetry and the story of the building of

Ásgar›r. The only material that has its origin in foreign (and originally

Latin) writing is the references to the Troy story in the so-called Epilogus .

It is because this is the only part of Skáldskaparmál not based on native

sources that some scholars have thought it likely that this is not Snorri’s

work, but this judgment is based only on the presupposition that Snorri

would not have used such material himself, or that if he had used it he

would have used it differently. The fact that this section is not in all

manuscripts is not sufficient reason to reject it, since it is not at all certain

that the Uppsala manuscript should be taken to represent the content of

Snorri’s original work better than the Codex Regius, Codex Trajectinus

and Codex Wormianus , and references to Troy appear in parts of the

Prologue that are in the Uppsala manuscript, as well as perhaps in

Heimskringla (there called Ásgar›r or inn forni Ásgar›r in accordance

with Gylfaginning ’s identification of these with Troy). But whether or

not the references to Troy were included by Snorri, whoever wrote them

had a very inadequate understanding of the Troy story. They are full of

misunderstandings and mistakes, and the writer does not seem to know

much of the actual events that were narrated in the Medieval Latin versions

of Homer and in the Norse Trójumanna saga . It is likely that he had

heard a somewhat garbled account of it, but had not actually read any

version of the story himself, though there are indications that he may

have had some knowledge of a version of Trójumanna saga , and perhaps

also of Breta sƒgur . There is a striking correspondence in one of his

untraditional details about the Troy story that corresponds closely with

THE SOURCES OF SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL

the version of Trójumanna saga in Hauksbók , and that is the name

Volucrontem, corresponding to Polypoetes in the original story. This may

have been taken by Snorri from a version of Trójumanna saga , or vice

versa, and in any case seems to be derived from a misreading of a text

where the initial p was mistaken for an insular v and the medial p for a c

or r ; the person who made these mistakes can hardly have been expert in

reading insular Latin manuscripts. There is also an interesting

correspondence between the Prologue to Snorra Edda and the Hauksbók

version of Breta sƒgur in the name Loricus, which is probably an error

for Locrinus. (See Faulkes 1978–9, 122–4.)

The classification of the kennings and heiti in Skáldskaparmál under their

respective referents, and the order in which they are arranged, has been said

to be similar to that in some medieval encyclopaedic writings (Bede, Isidore,

Honorius). Again, there are similarities, but these are not so great as to

convince me that Snorri had actually read any medieval Latin encyclopaedia,

only that he knew what they were like. His ordering of topics seems

quite natural for someone of his interests and with the materials he had to

deal with, and does not have to be derived from any foreign model.

The classification of rhetorical devices in Skáldskaparmál has some

similarities to that of Latin treatises on rhetoric, though in fact the closest

analogy to Snorri’s description of the kenning at the beginning of

Skáldskaparmál is in Aristotle:

Er sú grein svá sett at vér kƒllum Ó›in e›a ﬁór e›a T‡ e›a einhvern af Ásum

e›a álfum, at hverr ﬂeira er ek nefni til, ﬂá tek ek me› heiti af eign annars

Ássins e›a get ek hans verka nokkvorra. ﬁá eignask hann nafnit en eigi hinn

er nefndr var, svá sem vér kƒllum Sigt‡ e›a Hangat‡ e›a Farmat‡, ﬂat er ﬂá

Ó›ins heiti, ok kƒllum vér ﬂat kennt heiti. Svá ok at kalla Rei›art‡. ( Edda

Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, 86)

(This category (kenning) is constructed in this way, that we speak of Ó›inn

or ﬁórr or T‡r or one of the Æsir or elves, in such a way that with each of

those I mention, I add a term for the attribute of another Áss or make mention

of one or other of his deeds. Then the latter becomes the one referred to, and

not the one that was named; for instance when we speak of Victory-T‡r or

Hanged T‡r or Cargo-T‡r, these are expressions for Ó›inn, and these we call

kent heiti (periphrastic terms); similarly if one speaks of Chariot-T‡r.)

The passage in Aristotle’s Poetics (XXI. 11–13) that deals with this figure

of speech is as follows (he is speaking of metaphor used ‘in the way of

analogy’):

When, of four terms, the second bears the same relation to the first as the

fourth to the third; in which case the fourth may be substituted for the second

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: