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254
Saga-Book of the Viking Society
(str. 76) appears to be older than Eyvindr Skaldaspillir's
Hdkonarmdi (c. 960), in which it appears to be plagiarized. The
V Qluspd seems, similarly, to influence the Porfinnsdrdpa of
Arnorr j arlaska.ld (c. 1064).
In later sections of his work Dr Einar discusses problems about
each of the Eddaic lays in detail, seeking to decide how old they
are, where and by whom they were composed. On the whole,
Dr Einar is more conservative than most modern scholars, tending
to assign the lays to dates earlier than is now usual. The
Prymskvioa has been said by many in recent years to belong to
the twelfth century or even the thirteenth. The light vein in
which Parr and other gods are described is one reason for assigning
the poem to so late a date; another reason is that no allusion to
this poem is found in Snorri's Edda. In fact, it has even been
suggested that the Prymskvioa is the work of Snorri himself."!
But Dr Einar, partly following the researches of H. Kuhn.P
points out that the metrical forms and the language of the
Prymskvioa suggest that it is of considerable antiquity, perhaps
belonging to the Viking Age. It is noticeable that the nearly
meaningless particles of and um, replacing lost prefixes, are used
in this poem more frequently than in any of the longer Eddaic
lays.
early.
This, in itself, is strong evidence that the lay was composed
Opinion about the age of the Rigspula has been no less sharply
divided. As long ago as 1896, Eirikr Magnusson wrote in this
journal:
l 3
" I ask, what word, passage, turn of speech or
allusion to life and manners in that poem tend to make it decidedly
older than the r jth century?" A. Heuslcr-- endorsed and
developed Magnusson's arguments and, in a recent article,
K. von See l S was more positive, concluding that the Rigspula was
composed after Snorri's time.
Dr Einar (pp. 287-8) sees the Rigspula in a different light, and
finds nothing in it to show that it was composed later than the
tenth century. Superficially, at least, there is some evidence
which might suggest that the poem was composed at a late date.
It is not found in the Codex Regius of the Edda, but only in the
Codex Worrnianus of Snorri's Edda, dating from the midfourteenth
century. It is evidently interpolated in this manuscript,
and there is nothing to show that Snorri knew it. The lay
also contains a number of loan-words, e.g. dukr, plog«, kartr, besides
11 See P. Hallberg, Arkiv for nordisk filologi LXIX (1954), 51 ft.
12 Das FiUlwort of-um im Altmestnordischen (1929), 87 fl.
i a Saga-Book of the Viking Club I (1895-7),229.
14 Archiv fur das Studium der neueren. Sprachen exVI (1906), 270 ff.
i s Acta Philologica Scandinavica XXIV (1957), I ft.