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2008-05-13 07:23:08
Snorri Sturluson was a Christian, who had been raised and instructed at a seat of christian learning.There is no reason to expect that he or any of his contemporaries were followers of the heathen faith,or doubted the church´s gospel.snorri´s world view was shaped by clerical writings as well as that knowledge of the world and understanding of human existence which the clergy preached in their books and from their pulpits. This is also clearly indicated both in the Prologus and in the words quoted here above. It has been demonstrated how ideas in the Prologus concerning the roots of heather faith have clear models in church teachings and the writings of learned men in the Middle Ages. There is no longer and dispute among scholars on this point,although we cannot know with any certainty how many of his ideas Snorri developed through his own reading,how much he took from sermons or conversations with learned men,and how much is his own original conclusions.But Snorri´s attitudes to the heathen meterial itself was in any case completely different from the most common attitudes of the Middle Ages.
Snorri seems to have no prejudice regarding the heathen gods,or stories and poems about them; instead they provide him with the best of entertainment.In this respect he differs from other medieval authors who discuss heathen gods at all, with Saxo Grammaticus a case in point. The understanding expressed in the preface, that heathen men’s conceptions of the gods were the result th how they used the reason God had given them,did admittedly exist among european theologians.But the much more common opinion was that these gods were in fact personifications of Satan,persuading the unenlightened to worship him. Snorri makes no mention of this view,saying only:“They understood all things in an earthly sense,since they had not been endowed with a spiritual wisdom”The explanation biven in the Prologus of the origins of heathen faith can be regarded as an indirect protest against the attitude that heathen gods were evil spirits and at the same time as a justification for recording such varied stories about them.The need to explain the kennings, or metaphors used by ancient poets,by depiction the world to which they refer was no doubt the principal reason for the compilation of Gylfaginning but there is no denying that a general and pervasive interest in the ancestor’s culture also prompted the collection of all the lore preserved in Snorra Edda,and the care devoted to making it an artistic narrative. Snorri has intertwined this interest with the desire to understand the language of poetry,linking ancient traditions with the world history which western literary culture preserved and which began with the legends of the Old Testament, on the one hand,and Homer on the other.
Interest in these subjects was not unique to Snorri.Attempts to link the history of Icelanders and other northerners to world history are already visible in the work of the first Icelandic vernacular historiographer Ari the learned (da. 1125),as well as among earlier scholars,such as Sæmundur the learned. This historical interest among Icelanders was well known in the 12th century,as is mentioned by the Norwegian and Danish historiographers Theoloricus and Saxo.
Icelanders preserved skaldic poetry as well as ancient epics of the gods and heroes with less complicated metres, and their recording of ancient lore continued from the days of Ari the Learned right up until Snorri´s own time.It appears, for instance, in the works on the missionary monarches Ólafr Tryggvason and Ólafr Haraldsson,as well as other Norwegian leaders,and in Skjöldunga Saga and Orkneyinga Saga,as previously mentioned.This interest must have been rooted in the self-consciousness and self-confidence of the leading Icelandic families,who defined themselves with reference to the ancient heritage they were proud of. The first and clearest evidence of interest in applying analytical thought,trained by formal schooling,to native material is the First Grammatical Treatise, which was compiled around the middle of the 12th century and preserved together with Snorra Edda in W. Its author´s objective was to make ‘an alphabet for us Icelanders ’ in order to facilitate reading and writing in the native tongue. In Snorra Edda the discussion of poetic language and metre is shaped by the analytical thinking of formal education but here as well, no less than in the First Grammatical Treatise,the material is treated in an independent manner and the vocabulary used to describe the poetry is without doubt a domestic heritage. Another of Snorri´s nephews, Ólafr Þórðarson, took a different route in the so-called Third Grammatical Treatise, which is also preserved in the manuscript W. He explains the concepts of classical rhetoric to Icelanders using examples from their own poetry,skaldic poetry, manitaining that the stylistics of both skaldic poetry and classical poetry have developed from the same roots. Which is naturally in harmony with the idea that the gods Æsir had brought the art of poetry with them from Asia Minor.
Snorra Edda is thus a very remarkable source on the knowledge possessed by Icelanders in the Middle Ages and the integration of international knowledge with traditional lore inherited by Icelanders from their forefathers. It is definitely an even more invaluable and unique source on those traditions.It is definitely an even more invaluable and unique source on those traditions.Knowledge of pre-Christian beliefs in the Nordic countries would be much more hazy and indistinct if it were not for Snorri´s explanations and the intriguing sources he refers to,especially skaldic poems on mythological subjects. The mythological poems of the Elder Edda,which snorri also quotes, are preserved elsewhere,although Snorri´s text is of value in itself. Of course, Snorri´s picture of the ancient religion is incomplete and no doubt wrong in some aspects.The same could be said of his understanding of the ancient poetry.His works must be read critically, just as all other scholarly works.But their value as source material is great and his proximity to the subject gives him a major advantage over all others.Much of what is found in Snorri´s work is also confirmed by other sources.
Thanks to Snorri´s exceptional narrative skill, Snorra Edda was a popular work among Icelanders.The measure of his art is visible in the narrative framework of Gylfaginning,which is characterised by a carefully honed irony, but above all in the stories of the gods themselves.Nowhere else in the works attributed to snorri is his ever-present sense of humour given such free rein.Naturally,most of the fantastic and grotesque elements of the stories can be assumed to trace their origins to oral traditions and stories told earlier of the gods, although some of them may in fact be Snorri´s own re-telling of poems. But Snorri knows very well where to set the limits and to juxtapose seriousness with jest to give his stories a substantial depth, with many sentences etched in the mind of the reader long afterwards.As an example one could take the story of how the Æsir fettered the wolf Fenrir.The tale begins with the gods aware of the prophecy that much evil will stem from the wolf and his siblings.But by the time it has reached their attempts to bind the wolf,it has lost much of its seriousness. The scene has become so lively,even come that it is almost reminiscent of children playing with a large,practically harmless dog,with the Æsir having a good laugh when their deception works.But not all of them. ‘everyone laughed except Týr.He sacrificed his hand’ All of a sudden the game becomes deadly serious. Here the central motive of ancient mythology puts in an appearance:the gods constantly have to make sacrifices in their battle with the forces of destruction.The description of the fettering of the wolf is cruel,and in the end Gylifi asks the question of and thoughtfull listener: ‘Why did the Æsir no kill the wolf,since they expected evil to arise from him?’ The answer shous that the Æsir cannot avoid their fate,to meet their doom at Ragnarök.
The story of the world,from its creation to its downfall,Ragnarök,with a glimpse of the world which rises following this,is the core of the story told in gylfaginning.Knowledge that Ragnarök is ahead gives extra drama to the narrative and provides a tragic undercurrent.The narratives in Skáldskaparmál do not form s similar continuous progression.Here stories of the gods are followed by tales of heroes,so that Skáldskaparmál could be described as leading the reader from the divine to the mortal world. Finally,a eulogy of the current monarchs in Háttatal concludes the progression from the origins of time,through mythological time,and eventually to the time of the work itself.
Snorra Edda substantially influenced Icelandic poetry of the time and for a long time afterwards. At the time of the Reformation,there was renewed interest in Skáldskaparmál,which bore fruit in the poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries. With the dawn of the Romantic era,avid interest was rekindled in all of Snorra Edda,especially the mythology,with the result that study of the work has hardly ceased since then,and scholars still debate the extent of Snorri´s contribution to the work,his scholarly background and the value of the work as a source.Some of the Mythological stories are among the first readings attempted by nuiversity students of Old Icelandic,and in Iceland they are read in primary schools.Snorra Edda will no doubt continue to inform and entertain a great number of readers in the 21st century.
Vésteinn Ólason
Director of the Árni Magnússon Institute,University of Iceland
(English translation by Keneva Kunz)
