MIRATOR 12/2011
1
Snorri Sturluson qua Fulcrum:
Perspectives on the Cultural Activity of Myth, Mythological
Poetry and Narrative in Medieval Iceland
*
Frog
The present paper seeks to complement discussions of the social impacts of
Snorri Sturluson’s (1179–1241) mythography,
concentrating on Edda and the
discourse it generated in medieval Iceland. It sets out to build an overview
of Snorri’s impact on the cultural activity
1
of mythology in medieval Iceland
through a complementary set of specific examples with no pretence of a
comprehensive survey. These examples concentrate on sites of probable
innovation in Snorri’s handling of mythological material as contrasted with
broader evidence of the traditions to which they are related. Each example
could be presented in a paper-length discussion, but the emphasis here is on
the construction of an overview in order to develop a broader frame for
further discussion. Although no one example is unequivocally
demonstrable, the outline of the broader social pattern presented here is not
dependent on the specific details of each case nor on any one case
independently. Moreover, the frame of the overview affirms that individual
discussions are relevant and warranted when surveying and extending
existing research. Of course, the recognition of the social impacts of Edda on
the cultural activity of mythology does not demonstrate that individual
examples are necessarily responses to Edda, it nevertheless shows that these
would be consistent with a pattern and trend rather than arbitrary. For this
reason, in addition to late or statistically demonstrable examples which are
*
I would like to thank my two anonymous reviewers as well as Haukur Þorgeirsson for their valuable
comments and suggestions in the preparation of this paper for publication. I would
also like to thank Judy
Quinn and Heimir Pálsson for providing me with materials which I would not otherwise have been able to
access.
1
‘Cultural activity’ is used to refer generally to the full spectrum of contexts and modes of expression in
which a tradition-phenomenon emerges within a socio-cultural environment.
MIRATOR 12/2011
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relatively unequivocal, discussion will also be given to more problematic
and equivocal cases such as the connection of the kenning ‘mud of the eagle’
(§4), associations between Lokasenna and Edda which are nearly
contemporary (§5–7), and advancing to the more speculative possibility of
influence on Þrymskviða (§8).
Snorri Sturluson was born less than two centuries after the legal
conversion of Iceland and only decades after the first
ars grammatica adapted
the Latin script to the Old Norse vernacular. This situated him at a critical
intersection of circumstances in the history of Old Norse literature. He was a
politically aggressive, powerful and respected figure. His vernacular ars
poetica called
Edda and his composition and compilation of Norwegian kings’
sagas called Heimskringla exhibit a clear political orientation.
2
This is often
forgotten in the case of
Edda, conventionally dated shortly after his return
from the king’s court in 1220,
3
and which seems to have emerged around a
praise poem to the rulers of Norway in the form of the metrical study.
4
The
scope, magnitude and innovation of his undertakings gave rise to unique
and monumental products in an era when conventions of vernacular written
literature were just being formed.
5
Edda is a tour de force of poetic knowledge,
displaying over 400 separate quotations from a remarkable range of
vernacular poetry, and it became an authority on vernacular poetic art.
6
The
2
For discussions of these works in broader contexts, see e.g. Carol J. Clover & John Lindow (eds), Old
Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (Islandica 45), Cornell University Press: London 1985. For
a recent bibliography on Edda, see Kevin J. Wanner, Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of
Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia, University of Toronto Press: Toronto 2008; on its manuscripts
and relations to pedagogy and literacy, see e.g. Guðrún Nordal, Tools of Literacy, University of Toronto
Press: Toronto 2001. Edda is cited according to Anthony Faulkes (ed), Snorri Sturluson, Edda (3 vol.),
Viking Society: London 1982–1999; unless otherwise noted, eddic poetry is cited from Gustav Neckel &
Hans Kuhn (eds), Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, vol. 1, 4
th
ed.,Winter Universitätsverlag: Heidelberg 1963.
3
Margaret Clunies Ross, A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics, D. S. Brewer: Cambridge 2005, at
157.
4
The framing of the praise poem in an ars poetica can be connected to the fact that king Hákon
Hákonarson was only perhaps thirteen years old when Snorri arrived in Norway. Pedagogical works thus
had relevance for the young king, and the king supported writing and the translation of foreign literature,
inviting the new written mode of expression. Traditional skaldic verse had difficulty maintaining its status
and intelligibility amid these changing æsthetics and alternative entertainments (cf. Stephen A. Mitchell,
‘Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn’, Oral Tradition 16
(2001), 168–202). A pedagogical work on skaldic poetry in this environment emerges like a voice of
conservatism in the wake of globalization, yet it may have also been a strategy to promote both the king’s
patronage of Snorri as a poet and political support for Snorri’s position in Iceland.
5
See e.g. the classic study of Sigurður Nordal, Snorri Sturluson, Víkingsprent: Helgafell 1973 (originally
1920).
6
For a survey of Snorri’s verse citations, see Frog, ‘Snorri Sturluson and Oral Traditions’, in A. Ney et al.
(eds),
Á austrvega: Saga and East Scandinavia, Gävle University Press: Gävle 2009, 270–278; on the