Ebook: The Poetic Edda in the Light of Archaeology

With Sixty-one Illustrations.

Translated from the author’s Swedish manuscript by Mr. Grenville Grove.

This study has a two-fold purpose. In the first place, I shall endeavour to show the nature of the objects referred to in various passages in the Eddic poems. It is scarcely necessary to point out that such researches are of some importance. It is obvious that a person who reads the Eddic poems with some knowledge of the nature of the objects referred to by the authors will have a clearer and more vivid conception of those passages than a person who reads them without such knowledge. Moreover, the light of archaeology thrown on certain obscure passages may point to the correct solution — e.g., where different interpretations are possible from a purely linguistic point of view, or where the text has been suspected on philological grounds solely. In fact, we shall see below examples of how certain passages where the philologists have devoted much labour and thought to the interpretation or reconstruction of the text are cleared up in the light of archaeology.

Secondly, I shall endeavour in this study to assist in the solution of the questions as to the age of the Edda legends and the Eddic poems. These questions are at present under reconsideration; views which had long been regarded as definitely established have proved to be untenable. Archaeology should be able to contribute its share in such discussions. Hitherto, however, those who have addressed themselves to the chronological problem have availed themselves but little of the aid of archaeology.