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

MIRATOR 12/2011 

13

 

conventionally called Frá Ægi ok goðum  (‘Of  Ægir  and  the  Gods’)  which  

(unusually) relates this poem to the preceding poem Hymiskviða. Hymiskviða 

appears without this prose and independent of Lokasenna in AM 748a I 4

to

, 

presenting a high probability that Frá Ægi has been revised or introduced in 

the organization of the Codex Regius manuscript, or in an earlier exemplar 

connecting these poems. The poetic text is followed by a second prose 

passage conventionally called Frá Loka (‘Of Loki’). Neither prose text can be 

assumed to have been originally transcribed with the verse text as a coherent 

entity, and although together these are commonly referred to as a ‘prose 

frame’ of the poem, it is not even certain that both were added at the same 

time. 

 

Snorri quotes one stanza of the poetic text in a form different from the 

Codex Regius version (comparable to Lokasenna, st. 21.1–2 + 47.3 + 29.4–6) and 

attributes it to a different figure.

44

 No other eddic quotation in Edda shows 

such great variation from examples appearing in documented versions of a 

whole poem. The handling of formulae suggests competence in the oral 

tradition rather than passive reading knowledge, conscious memorization, 

or the incompetence of a careless manuscript copyist. Snorri clearly knew 

this poem, and the handling of verse suggests this knowledge derives from 

the oral tradition. His attribution of the verse to a different figure presents 

the possibility that he was familiar with the poetic narrative in a slightly 

different form, as is the case with some other eddic poems.

45

  

 

In  Skáldskaparmál,  ch. 33, Snorri summarizes a narrative about the 

gods visiting Ægir’s feast after they had hosted Ægir. Ægir’s initial 

attendance of the gods’ feast, where he is awed by their stories and illusions, 

provides the narrative frame for the dialogic portion of Skáldskaparmál, and 

seems to have provided the basic model for Snorri’s construction of the 

similar dialogic narrative frame of Gylfaginning (‘The Deluding of Gylfi’) (the 

outsider visiting the gods) and its parallel in Þórr’s visit to Útgarða-Loki (the 

gods visiting the other’s feast; §7). Snorri clearly found this narrative 

interesting and compelling, although we perceive it largely through these 

references and adaptations. In ch. 33, it is introduced to elucidate the 

kenning ‘fire of the sea’ (= ‘gold’), which Snorri derives from the lýsigull 

(‘luster-gold’) used to light Ægir’s hall.

46

 Snorri mentions Loki’s senna and 

                                                

44

 Gylfaginning, ch. 20; outside of three central poems, single- or paired-stanza quotation is a consistent 

pattern in Gylfaginning and does not indicate lack of knowledge of individual poems (see further Frog 

2009, 274–277). 

45

 On evidence of Snorri’s knowledge of oral poetry, see Frog 2009. 

46

 The kenning is simply mentioned without narrative elaboration in Codex Upsaliensis. 

---

MIRATOR 12/2011 

14

 

the slaying of one servant at the feast. However, rather than recounting 

these, he digresses from the narrative into a genealogy and attributes. Frá 

Ægi opens with the observation that Ægir was also called Gymir. This has no 

discernible bearing on the preceding poem Hymiskviða and is inconsistent 

with the use of Gymir in the poetic text of Lokasenna (st. 42), whereas it is 

consistent with Snorri’s assertion that Gymir was used by poets in this way 

(Skáldskaparmál, ch. 25). The prose then connects the adventure of Hymiskviða 

to Lokasenna, before a section paralleling Snorri’s summary, but shorter and 

without mention that the feasting was reciprocal, followed by a brief 

description  of  how  the  gods  drove  Loki  from  the  hall  after  he  killed  the  

servant. This last accommodates Loki’s arrival at the beginning of the poetic 

text, although there is an inconsistency in that Loki appears to be arriving at 

Ægir’s feast for the first time.

47

  

 

Suggestions that Snorri was familiar with an earlier common 

manuscript exemplar of this text

48

 are not consistent with more probable oral 

familiarity with the poetic text, his general emphasis on the reciprocal 

feasting between Ægir and the gods (absent from the Frá Ægi), or with 

                                                

47

 Terry Gunnell, The Origins of Scandinavian Drama, D. S. Brewer: Woodbridge 1995, at 225–226. 

48

 E.g. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen (‘Loki’s senna in Ægir’s Hall’, in G. W. Weber (ed), Idee, Gestalt, 

Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See, Odense University Press: Odense 1988, 239–259, at 245) proposes 

that Snorri’s mention of Þórr’s absence from the feast indicates manuscript dependence because this is 

only relevant to Lokasenna. This is unfounded and assumes Snorri’s truncated narrative was all he knew 

or that he was not sensitive to the broader frame of the narrative summarized. The proposal that textual 

correspondence between Snorri’s statement in Skáldskaparmál, ch. 33 (correspondences in cursive), 

“Þórr var ekki þar. Hann var farinn í austrveg at drepa tr ll” (‘Þórr was not there. He had gone into the 

east-(road) to kill trolls’) and Lokasenna’s  “Þórr kom eigi, þvíat hann var í austrvegi” (‘Þórr did not 

come because he had gone in the east-(road)’) reflects Snorri’s use of an exemplar is unconvincing. 

Snorri’s use is consistent with his use of this prose narrative formulae elsewhere: when Óðinn creates 

trouble with the giant Hrungnir in Skáldskaparmál, ch. 17 (“Þórr var farinn í austrvega at berja tr ll”, 

‘Þórr had gone into the east-(roads) to smite trolls’); and in the Masterbuilder Tale in Gylfaginning, ch. 42 

(‘[...] ef Þórr kvæmi heim; en þá var hann farinn í austrveg at berja tr ll”, ‘... if Þórr came home; but at 

that time he had gone into the east-(road) to smite trolls’). This is more consistent with a unified narrative 

style rather than manuscript copying and also anticipates Þórr’s appearance at the narrative climax. The 

use of the prepositional phrase í austrvegi (‘in the east-(roads)’, i.e. east of the Baltic Sea) rather than the 

adverb austr (‘in the east’) otherwise appears idiomatic for journeys related to trade in the real world (see 

A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (DONP), 

http://dataonp.hum.ku.dk/index.html

, accessed 20.09.2011, 

s.v. ‘austrvegr’). It only appears in a mythological context in Edda  and in Frá Ægi, where it contrasts 

with the Lokasenna verse text (st. 59.4–5 presents á austrvega, ‘on east-roads’; although cf. Hárbarðsljóð 

1). This is more suggestive of Edda providing a model text paraphrased and abbreviated in Frá Ægi 

rather than a hypothetical manuscript exemplar of Lokasenna (or an antecedent text from which it drew) 

shaping formulaic expression in Snorri’s prose style. Cf. also von See et al. (Kommentar, 2.382–384), 

who are sceptical that Snorri would have attached the narrative material related to visual deception to the 

senna without an exemplar; however, its centrality for Snorri and his emphasis on visual deception in its 

use make Edda the more probable context of innovation with magical motifs, if these are not considered 

traditional; on evidence corroborating Loki’s initial slaying of Ægir’s servant at the feast as a traditional 

element, see Frog 2010, esp. 274; for a discussion of the expression gríðstaðr mikill across these texts, see 

Frog 2010, esp. 164–165, 324–325.  

---