SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Voluspd III
When was Voluspd composed?
Earlier on I put forward the view that the poem's place
in literature suggests that it was composed around the
year 1000. If one examines its place in the religious
movement of the tenth century one comes to the same
conclusion. It is scarcely thinkable that it was made
after the final victory of Christianity, nor yet before the
Christian mission had begun to raise a great groundswell
of disturbance. Finnur Jonsson considered its inspiration
to have been the Christian mission of King Hakon the
Good, but the spiritual effects of this mission appear to
have been too slight to cause such a poem to grow out of
them. King Olafr Tryggvason's mission is another
matter. Besides, Hakon's mission never reached Iceland,
so that if the poem is considered Icelandic on other
grounds, this points forward to the end of the tenth
century. It is otherwise difficult to put forward convincing
arguments, since the difference is only a few decades.
But the view which is supported by most and opposed by
fewest probabilities, and which best helps one to understand
and explain the poem, is the most convincing. It will be
shown later that the assumption that V oluspd was
composed just before the year 1000 opens up a new
explanation for the poem's creation.
Where was Voluspd composed?
This question often occurs in the notes to the text in
my edition. Briefly, it may be said that V oluspd is the
Eddaic poem for which the most convincing arguments for
an Icelandic genesis can be given. This is not to say that
these arguments are unassailable. The dispute between
Finnur Jonsson and Bjorn M. Olsen over the home of the
Eddaic poems'" showed clearly that it is easier to knock
down arguments in such matters than to find better ones
in their place. But if all probabilities, however light they
eeSee note 15.