SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

THE LANGUAGES OF ALVlsSMAL
By LENNART MOBERG
AL V1SSMA L is not one of the outstanding poems
. of the Edda. Erik Noreen passes the somewhat
harsh judgement that the poem in purely poetic terms
is "a pretty unhappy product"." Whether or not this is
true, Alvissmdl does possess qualities which lend the poem
a unique interest, not least from the linguistic point of
view.
The content of the poem is roughly as follows. Alviss,
"All-knowing", a pale-nosed dwarf who lives under the
earth, lays claim to a woman, who, it would seem, is the
daughter of the god Thor, and claims that she has been
promised to him in marriage. Thor, who strangely
enough was not present when this promise was made,
wishes to prevent such a bad match. He succeeds most
cunningly. Thor promises that the marriage will take
place if Alviss is able to answer a series of questions.
Alviss agrees to the proposal and answers all thirteen
questions correctly - but in the meantime the night
passes. At the end of the examination the dwarf is taken
by surprise by the rising sun, which brings about his
undoing. The implication here is that the dwarf is
turned to stone when he sees the sun, a motif well known
from popular belief.
Such is the narrative framework. It plays a subsidiary
part in the poem and is really only an excuse for
communicating learning of a mythological-lexicographical
nature - evidently the real object of the poem. In this
Alvissmdl is reminiscent of Vaffiruonismdl and Grimnismdl.
The thirteen questions comprise twenty-six stanzas in
lj60ahdttr; in alternate stanzas Thor puts his questions and
1 Den nOTsk-islandska poesien (1926), 62.