What We're Working With [1/100]
Apr. 17th, 2012 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordI want to focus on individual stories and characters from Norse mythology, but as much as I'd enjoy starting off with juicy stories of battling gods and wily Jotuns* and sex and intrigue and comedy, I'm going to be a boring old fart and first share some thoughts about the sources (uni has ruined me).
Considering the vast, intricate world of Norse mythology, I was kinda surprised the first time I learned that the source material is pretty damn slim: The majority of what we know comes from only two books, one of which is incomplete (several pages were accidentally destroyed, whoops) and the other we know to be partially incorrect.
Oral tradition can be a bitch when it comes to preserving knowledge for future generations. Which is pretty much what the historian and poet Snorri Sturluson - this little ray of sunshine:
- was concerned about in 12th Century's Iceland. The Nordic countries had already been converted to Christianity a century prior, and Snorri was a Christian himself, so his motivation for preserving the old stories was less about Paganism and more about his love of poetry.
You see, Snorri was enthusiastic about a particular kind: Skaldic poetry (or Viking Age court poetry, usually written to commend the current/local king), and one of the common characteristcs of this poetry (in addition to alliteration and the ridiculously complicated drottkvætt metre) is the use of kennings, a form of circumlocution. Some kennings are easily figured out, for instance "moon's sister" = "the sun", others are... more ambiguous, and scholars are still fighting over them to this day.
(My favourite kenning is from the saga of Helgi Hundingsbane, where it says that "Helgi was struck with grief's/anger's dew [harmdögg]", meaning he cried. Well if a badass viking can't cry when he's already dead and having a conversation with his still-alive lover, I don't know when he can.)
Why do I bring up kennings? Because a big bunch of them refer to things from Norse mythology! It's no use reciting a poem about how awesome your king is if people get confused when you say that Fornjót's son was great help on the ship's journey, and they want to know why this guy hasn't been mentioned before. That's when it helps to know that Fornjót is a powerful Jotun, and his sons are Ægir ("Sea"), Kári ("Wind"), and Logi ("Fire"), but then you have to figure out for yourself which one of the natural forces the kenning most likely refers to.
So Snorri, wanting to make a guide to how skaldic poetry works, wrote a book he called Edda (later amusingly known as Prose Edda; also Snorri Edda or Younger Edda) in three parts, including a prologue where he theorizes that the Norse gods were actually warriors from Troy (!). These three parts are:
1) Gylfaginning ("The tricking of Gylfi"), where a mortal king (you guessed it, Gylfi) wants to visit the gods but winds up some other mysterious place where he asks the three residents (called High, Just-As-High, and Third) about the beginning and eventual end of the world.
2) Skáldskaparmál ("The language of poetry"), which is a conversation between the previously mentioned sea god Ægir, and Bragi the god of poetry. Bragi explains a whole bunch of kennings.
3) Háttatal ("List of verse-forms"), pretty much what it says on the label. A bunch of verses examplifying skaldic poems, most of them composed by Snorri himself.
And that's the Prose Edda. That's the "partially incorrect" one I mentioned in the introduction, and ever since it was published there's been fighting over just how accurate a portrayal of Norse mythology it is. The framing devices of each story (as well as most of the verses), obviously, was written by Snorri, a Christian living in a Christian society a hundred years after people stopped worshiping these gods (and even in Snorri's time it was potentially risky to show too much enthusiasm for the old beliefs - which is possibly why Snorri wrote how Gylfi never actually met any Norse gods on his journey).
The most interesting part of the Prose Edda are the verses and references Snorri quotes from some older source, which is why scholars theorized about "an older Edda", existing in Snorri's time but then lost forever.
"Forever" in this case meaning "until 1643".
That's when the Bishop of Skálholt, Iceland, found a vellum manuscript (somebody once told me he found it in an old wooden bench, but I've never been able to confirm that story) collecting eleven mythological poems and twenty heroic ones.
Not the prettiest of manuscripts, and it's not on public display. I think we're kind of
self-conscious about it.
The title "Edda" stuck from Snorri's works, so this other book is known as the Poetic Edda, the Older Edda (this is what we call it in Norway), and sometimes Sæmundar Edda (because the Bishop thought it might have been written by Sæmundr the Learned, but that turned out to be a a load of tosh). The documents themselves were found to be 12th Century but the stories are obviously older, and they also describe flora and fauna that can't be found on Iceland (such as wolves) - furthermore, hey! They corrobated things Snorri wrote about, things they thought he might have made up himself! Awesome!
The Bishop later got in trouble when his daughter got compromised in his own house (not by the Bishop himself, but it was still a scandal), so he wound up gifting the book to the Danish king who made sure the scandal was hushed up. Since then the find has been known as Codex Regius. It led to a renewed interest in Viking age stories, which led to the recording of several old stories (such as "Baldr's Dreams"), and these - as well as other similar poems from roughly the same period - are often included in the editions of the Poetic Edda you can find in your local bookshop. These additions that weren't in Codex Regius are known as Eddica minora.
Still, as wonderful a source as the Codex Regius is, it's missing several pages and the front page is so blackened it's hard to read it all. Furthermore, the poems reference many stories from Norse mythology we know nothing about (I will never know why Loki spent eight years underground birthing children and milking cows, and that makes me sad), so it's painfully obvious we don't have it all. There must have been such a variety of stories, not to mention an abundance of local variations, and still we're lucky to base most of our understanding of such a rich mythology on just two compromised sources.
So if you wonder - when I talk about certain myths - why some of them sort of end mid-story, or have characters doing drastic things with no clear motivation, or refer to incidents I can't extrapolate on, I've just explained why.
Thankfully most of them won't be like that. Thankfully the fact that the stories we know from Norse mythology are beautifully intervowen (which'll make it all the more hard for me to divide them into several entries), as well as the fact that things like alliteration and kennings were used in skaldic poetry, helped people remember these stories from generation to generation; So what we have, we have. ThankGod Bragi.
* I've decided against using the common translation "giant", because although it is etymologically suitable, most people's perception of what a giant is doesn't fit with the vast array of sizes and shapes Norse giants come in (compare Loki and Fafnir - even the Fenrir wolf is technically a giant/Jotun). To make it less complicated I'm not going to use the plural (jǫtnar) or female forms (gýgr/íviðja). So: One Jotun, several Jotuns.
Considering the vast, intricate world of Norse mythology, I was kinda surprised the first time I learned that the source material is pretty damn slim: The majority of what we know comes from only two books, one of which is incomplete (several pages were accidentally destroyed, whoops) and the other we know to be partially incorrect.
Oral tradition can be a bitch when it comes to preserving knowledge for future generations. Which is pretty much what the historian and poet Snorri Sturluson - this little ray of sunshine:
- was concerned about in 12th Century's Iceland. The Nordic countries had already been converted to Christianity a century prior, and Snorri was a Christian himself, so his motivation for preserving the old stories was less about Paganism and more about his love of poetry.
You see, Snorri was enthusiastic about a particular kind: Skaldic poetry (or Viking Age court poetry, usually written to commend the current/local king), and one of the common characteristcs of this poetry (in addition to alliteration and the ridiculously complicated drottkvætt metre) is the use of kennings, a form of circumlocution. Some kennings are easily figured out, for instance "moon's sister" = "the sun", others are... more ambiguous, and scholars are still fighting over them to this day.
(My favourite kenning is from the saga of Helgi Hundingsbane, where it says that "Helgi was struck with grief's/anger's dew [harmdögg]", meaning he cried. Well if a badass viking can't cry when he's already dead and having a conversation with his still-alive lover, I don't know when he can.)
Why do I bring up kennings? Because a big bunch of them refer to things from Norse mythology! It's no use reciting a poem about how awesome your king is if people get confused when you say that Fornjót's son was great help on the ship's journey, and they want to know why this guy hasn't been mentioned before. That's when it helps to know that Fornjót is a powerful Jotun, and his sons are Ægir ("Sea"), Kári ("Wind"), and Logi ("Fire"), but then you have to figure out for yourself which one of the natural forces the kenning most likely refers to.
So Snorri, wanting to make a guide to how skaldic poetry works, wrote a book he called Edda (later amusingly known as Prose Edda; also Snorri Edda or Younger Edda) in three parts, including a prologue where he theorizes that the Norse gods were actually warriors from Troy (!). These three parts are:
1) Gylfaginning ("The tricking of Gylfi"), where a mortal king (you guessed it, Gylfi) wants to visit the gods but winds up some other mysterious place where he asks the three residents (called High, Just-As-High, and Third) about the beginning and eventual end of the world.
2) Skáldskaparmál ("The language of poetry"), which is a conversation between the previously mentioned sea god Ægir, and Bragi the god of poetry. Bragi explains a whole bunch of kennings.
3) Háttatal ("List of verse-forms"), pretty much what it says on the label. A bunch of verses examplifying skaldic poems, most of them composed by Snorri himself.
And that's the Prose Edda. That's the "partially incorrect" one I mentioned in the introduction, and ever since it was published there's been fighting over just how accurate a portrayal of Norse mythology it is. The framing devices of each story (as well as most of the verses), obviously, was written by Snorri, a Christian living in a Christian society a hundred years after people stopped worshiping these gods (and even in Snorri's time it was potentially risky to show too much enthusiasm for the old beliefs - which is possibly why Snorri wrote how Gylfi never actually met any Norse gods on his journey).
The most interesting part of the Prose Edda are the verses and references Snorri quotes from some older source, which is why scholars theorized about "an older Edda", existing in Snorri's time but then lost forever.
"Forever" in this case meaning "until 1643".
That's when the Bishop of Skálholt, Iceland, found a vellum manuscript (somebody once told me he found it in an old wooden bench, but I've never been able to confirm that story) collecting eleven mythological poems and twenty heroic ones.
Not the prettiest of manuscripts, and it's not on public display. I think we're kind of
self-conscious about it.
The title "Edda" stuck from Snorri's works, so this other book is known as the Poetic Edda, the Older Edda (this is what we call it in Norway), and sometimes Sæmundar Edda (because the Bishop thought it might have been written by Sæmundr the Learned, but that turned out to be a a load of tosh). The documents themselves were found to be 12th Century but the stories are obviously older, and they also describe flora and fauna that can't be found on Iceland (such as wolves) - furthermore, hey! They corrobated things Snorri wrote about, things they thought he might have made up himself! Awesome!
The Bishop later got in trouble when his daughter got compromised in his own house (not by the Bishop himself, but it was still a scandal), so he wound up gifting the book to the Danish king who made sure the scandal was hushed up. Since then the find has been known as Codex Regius. It led to a renewed interest in Viking age stories, which led to the recording of several old stories (such as "Baldr's Dreams"), and these - as well as other similar poems from roughly the same period - are often included in the editions of the Poetic Edda you can find in your local bookshop. These additions that weren't in Codex Regius are known as Eddica minora.
Still, as wonderful a source as the Codex Regius is, it's missing several pages and the front page is so blackened it's hard to read it all. Furthermore, the poems reference many stories from Norse mythology we know nothing about (I will never know why Loki spent eight years underground birthing children and milking cows, and that makes me sad), so it's painfully obvious we don't have it all. There must have been such a variety of stories, not to mention an abundance of local variations, and still we're lucky to base most of our understanding of such a rich mythology on just two compromised sources.
So if you wonder - when I talk about certain myths - why some of them sort of end mid-story, or have characters doing drastic things with no clear motivation, or refer to incidents I can't extrapolate on, I've just explained why.
Thankfully most of them won't be like that. Thankfully the fact that the stories we know from Norse mythology are beautifully intervowen (which'll make it all the more hard for me to divide them into several entries), as well as the fact that things like alliteration and kennings were used in skaldic poetry, helped people remember these stories from generation to generation; So what we have, we have. Thank
* I've decided against using the common translation "giant", because although it is etymologically suitable, most people's perception of what a giant is doesn't fit with the vast array of sizes and shapes Norse giants come in (compare Loki and Fafnir - even the Fenrir wolf is technically a giant/Jotun). To make it less complicated I'm not going to use the plural (jǫtnar) or female forms (gýgr/íviðja). So: One Jotun, several Jotuns.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 04:51 pm (UTC)This whole post kind of reminded me of Beowulf, which I finally got around to reading just recently -- for several reasons, but mainly because of the kennings (some of which, from what I understand, are insane). I knew those were common in Old English, but didn't realize they'd come straight from skaldic traditions. I mean, I probably should have figured, but I didn't think about it.
(called High, Just-As-High, and Third)
Heh. Poor Third guy.
I will never get to the details of why Loki spent eight years underground birthing children and milking cows, and that makes me sad
Now there is something I definitely haven't heard before!
That manuscript really doesn't look too bad to me, considering the age. At least it looks like most of the pages are pretty much intact, and the ones shown in the picture look like they'd be nicely legible. It's damn unfortunate about the lost pages, though.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 06:41 pm (UTC)Now there is something I definitely haven't heard before!
It's such an absurd little aside. Odin mentions it in Lokasenna as an attempt to shut up Loki talking about all the god's wrongdoings, implying birthing children and milking cows is the worst thing Loki's ever done...!
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 03:16 am (UTC)XD
(Although birthing children could be pretty bad if they turn out like their father...)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-17 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-19 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-19 02:26 pm (UTC)