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

MIRATOR 12/2011 

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in  the expression  ragna røkkr  (although  r k  is used in st. 25).

59

  Some 

manuscripts of Snorri’s Edda exhibit scribal variation of r k for røk(k)r. The 

terms have clearly distinct semantic fields and variation between them is not 

exhibited elsewhere, while they are so phonetically similar that ragna røk(k)r 

and ragna r k could not remain distinct in oral circulation (and could easily 

appear as a misspelling in a manuscript text). The scribal variation suggests 

interference  from  ragna r k  as  the  more  conventional  and  familiar  form  

although r k has been considered an opaque archaism leading to the use of 

the more familiar røk(k)r.

60

 The term røk(k)r  is  also  generally  very  rare  in  

verse and was not commonly used metaphorically for ‘fate, doom’,

61

 as 

would  be  expected  if  it  were  a  conventional  base-word  in  the  expression  

ragna r k.

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 This significantly reduces any likelihood that Snorri’s usage is 

orally based, while variation in Snorri’s quotation of Lokasenna  verse 

problematizes any suggestion that he has modeled his use on the basis of 

one line in a manuscript copy of this poem. As there is nothing to support 

that use of røk(k)r  was  ever  conventional  in  the  poetry,  the  appearance  of  

ragna røkkr in Lokasenna st. 39 is likely attributable to Snorri’s influence. This 

possibility and the probable influence of Edda on Lokasenna’s prose (§5) are 

reciprocally reinforcing, particularly  considering  Edda’s  impacts  more 

generally. Although this may be little more than a subtle copyist’s 

emendation, it opens the possibility that more significant emendations may 

have  been  introduced  by  the  same  copyist,  if  not  in  the  process  of  

transcription or even in the oral circulation of the poem, observing that 

Snorri’s impacts on skaldic verse appear to have been primarily at the level 

of oral culture. 

 

                                                

59

 Von See et al., Kommentar, 2.436, 465. 

60

 See Haraldur Bernharðsson 2007, although his suggestion that this variation was free and synonymic 

(at 33) does not consider that, outside of Lokasenna, it only occurs within the phrase ragna røk(k)r  > 

ragna r k rather than discretely in røk(k)r > r k or r k > røk(k)r. 

61

 Cf. LP, s.v. ‘røkr’. 

62

 In Lokasenna, this appears in the stanza attributed to the god Týr, in which he taunts Loki with the 

binding of (his son) the wolf Fenrir. This narrative is given prominence in Gylfaginning  and  seems  to  

have held special interest for poets, as implied by its attachment to copies of Skáldslaparmál without the 

rest of Gylfaginning (cf. Pálsson 2010, 27–30). Influence of Edda in this particular stanza would thus be 

less surprising. 

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MIRATOR 12/2011 

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7. Þórr’s Visit to Útgarða-Loki and the Climactic Insults of Lokasenna 

 

Loki’s final insults directed against Þórr in Lokasenna stanzas 60 and 62 

exhibit correspondences to Snorri’s account of Þórr’s visit to Útgarða-Loki. 

In order to address these stanzas and their potential relationship to Snorri’s 

work, it is first necessary to introduce Snorri’s narrative and outline the high 

probability that Snorri has manipulated traditional material for specific ends 

directly related to his composition of a vernacular ars poetica. The story is 

composed as a cycle of three adventures: a) the laming of Þórr’s goats; b) 

travelling with the giant Skrýmir; and c) games in Útgarða-Loki’s hall. This 

is the longest narrative in the Gylfaginning  section  of  Edda,  constituting 

approximately  one  sixth  of  the  whole.  Gylfaginning is Edda’s survey of the 

mythological system, its figures with their names, attributes and 

genealogies, from the cosmogony to the eschatology. This information is 

presented in a dialogic narrative frame where the visiting Gylfi is deceived 

by magic and tales of the pagan gods told by a three-fold (Trinity) 

representation of Óðinn.

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 This frame is developed from vernacular 

mythological wisdom competitions, Christian pedagogical texts, and, as 

Christopher Abram has recently discussed, Christian dialogic conversion 

strategies oriented to challenging and undermining vernacular belief 

traditions.

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  Þórr’s  visit  to  Útgarða-Loki  can  be  considered  the  heart  of  

Gylfaginning, carefully constructed to reflect and comment on the narrative 

frame.

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 Snorri’s conscious manipulation of material is implicit in this 

narration. When situated in relation to broader evidence of Þórr’s 

adventures, this becomes a site in Edda where it is possible to see Snorri’s 

uses of tradition as an interesting and valuable resource and referent. The 

three episodes all appear to be developed from traditional material, 

although Snorri has interwoven them with themes related to food and 

hospitality, and the ineffectiveness of Þórr’s hammer.

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  The  narrative  is  

                                                

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 Heinz Klingenberg, ‘Gylfaginning: Tres vidit unum adoravit’, in B. Brogyanyi & T. Krömmelbein 

(eds),  Germanic Dialects: Linguistic and Philological Investigations, John Benjamins Publishing 

Company: Amsterdam 1986, 627–689, esp. at 637–641.  

64

 Christopher Abram ‘Gylfaginning and Early Medieval Conversion Theory’, Saga-Book 33 (2009), 5–

25. 

65

 John Lindow, ‘Thor’s Visit to Útgarðaloki’, Oral Tradition 15 (2000), 170–186. 

66

 On the theme of food and hospitality, see Lindow 2000, 176–177. The ineffectiveness of Þórr’s 

hammer is in adventure a: the hammer is used to resurrect Þórr’s goats, but one rises lame; adventure b: 

Þórr strikes the giant Skrýmir three times without effect; adventure c: Þórr strikes at Útgarða-Loki but hits 

nothing but air. The narrative of the laming of Þórr’s goat and his servants are attested elsewhere, but 

only here is the laming connected with a ‘feast’ and his servants identified with a human community (cf. 

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