SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Voluspd 99
There is no room here to describe all the explanations which
I can not accept (one such is by Guobrandur Vigfusson,
who thought the poem delivered by three sibyls). I
think it right, however, to make some mention of two of
them.
Bugge thought that Heior (st. 22) was the sibyl who
delivered the prophecy. He wanted to alter the order of
the stanzas so that a narrative framework was created
round the poem (on an epic, not dramatic, model), as
round Vegtamskuioa. He put st. 22 first, then the first
part of st. 28 and st. 29. After this introduction he lets
the prophecy itself begin with st. I, etc. This is at first
sight a more easily understood order. But it would
lessen the artistic value of the poem enormously, besides
which it would be unnatural to put the difficult in place
of the easy. In one respect I agree with Bugge. 46 He
grasped the fact that st. 19-20 belong near st. 27. But he
went flatly against the whole spirit of the poem by moving
st. 27 and the first part of st. 28 ahead of st. 21, instead of
moving st. 19-20 to follow st. 26. This shows most
clearly how far the understanding of the poem has
advanced since Bugge produced his edition.
Mogk-? thinks that the sibyl is waked from the dead,
that twenty-nine stanzas are the poet's narrative, and
that the prophecy proper begins at st. 30. The two latter
points differ widely from my own understanding of the
poem and the poet, but because Mogk only mentions them
and does not give his reasons, I do not think it necessary
to quarrel further with his views here.
3. It still remains to make some comment on the structure
of the poem, which is in danger of being overlooked in the
exposition of individual stanzas.
.. Cf. my commentary on st. '9.
., E. Mogk, 'Anmalen av F. ]6nsson: Den oldnordiske og oldislandske
Litteraturs Historie', Arkiv XII (1896), 280 ff., and in H. Paul, Grundriss der
germanischen Philologie, and ed. (,896.'9°9), II 579 fl.