Þrymskviða, Þrymlur, and Tord af Havsgaard—a Case of Early Antiquarianism?

Abstract

The eddic poems are, as is well known, only preserved in written form and can therefore only be studied via the written records. As Fidjestøl put it: “All poetry which is orally transmitted from the past can be known only in its written form after the process of oral transmission has ceased” 1 — even though oral transmission may continue again on the basis of written sources. Scholars have argued that it is possible to draw a distinction between the linguistic body of a poem/text and the literary or narrative content, since, of course, a young poem or saga can tell an older story, as Erik Noreen remarked in 1926. 2 This article discusses the transmission of the myth of Þórr’s recovery of his hammer, a story most famously known from Þrymskviða . The story matter of Þrymskviða has a rich transmission. It is possible to follow it from the thirteenth century in Codex Regius, Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, GKS 2365 4to, until Early Modern times. The only medieval copy of the poem is preserved in Codex Regius, and the poem does not seem to have been known by Snorri—even though it has been argued that Snorri may have composed the poem. 3 From a later period, we have a cycle of rímur , Þrymlur , which are preserved in Staðarhólsbók (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, AM 604 g 4to), a collection of rímur dated to around the middle of the sixteenth century. 4 We also have a Danish, Swedish, and