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Voluspa 109
by a new light. This new light gave him courage to
select and to raise a single temple from the scattered ruins
of ancient hallows.
V oluspa and Christianity
The disagreements of scholars on this subject have been
dealt with earlier.P! Both extremes, total paganism and
total Christianity, and most positions in between have
been looked for and found in it. Yet even those who
stand foremost on the side of paganism, such as Finnur
J6nsson, acknowledge that the poet knew something of
Christianity, since they consider that he composed the
poem to demonstrate the superiority of the old faith over
the new. But the knowledge of such a new thing as
Christianity must have had some effect on so sensitive
and thoughtful a spirit as that of the author of Voluspa.
It is more difficult to decide just what this effect was.
Axel Olrik has said: "No pagan of the tenth century,
at least none of the more intelligent, was entirely
untouched by Christian ideas." He points out that
heathens adopted some burial customs and the custom of
pouring water on children (at their naming) from
Christianity long before they adopted the faith itself.
And he reminds us of Gisli Sursson, who dreamt, about the
middle of the tenth century, of some of the commandments
of the new faith - do not be the first to kill,
help the blind and the lame, and so on. 65 Spiritual
influences are often diffused in the atmosphere in
a peculiar way. But we may note a few factors which
could have made Christianity passably familiar to the
pagan: such were the journeyings of Norwegians and
Icelanders to the British Isles, the Christian settlers in
Iceland, the Christian mission of King Hakon the Good.
And there is one other influence'" which ought certainly
•• See pp. 83-5.
•• A. Olrik, Nordisk Aandsliv (1907), 64. [The historicity of these dreams is
counted dubious - see e.g. G. Turville-Petre, 'Gisli Sursson and his poetry',
MLR XXXIX (1944), 574-91 - Translators' note.]
•• Cf. Mogk, 'Anmalan .. .', Arkiv XII (1896), 274.