Snorri Sturluson qua Fulcrum: Perspectives on the Cultural Activity of Myth, Mythological Poetry and Narrative in Medieval Iceland



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MIRATOR 12/2011 

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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

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 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. 

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 ‘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 


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