Þulur

Elena Gurevich

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Vol. III. Poetry from Treatises on Poetics 7. Introduction 4. Sources 4.2. The Works 4.2.3. Þulur

4.2.3. Þulur

Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘Þulur’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].

The þulur are versified enumerations of heiti (poetic terms) for the main subject categories of skaldic verse, appended to the end of Skáldskaparmál in five mss of SnE, namely in R, Tˣ, A, B and C. With a few exceptions these lists were composed in fornyrðislag metre and were most likely compiled first of all as versified dictionaries intended for educational and mnemonic purposes, i.e. for training young poets and preserving poetic vocabulary. However, the þulur display substantial learned content, and both the range and the ordering of the subject categories and the fact that many of the heiti they contain never appear in skaldic poetry indicate that the composition of these enumerations could also have been prompted by encyclopedic interests. In addition to a great number of personal names from Old Norse myth and legend (names of gods, giants, dwarfs, sea-kings etc.) and terms for the main heroic concepts important for skaldic poetry (e.g. man, woman, battle, armour, ship and various weapons), these catalogues systematise numerous heiti that describe the physical world (sea, rivers, fjords, earth, heaven, sun, moon etc.) with its elements (wind, fire) and inhabitants (various animals, fish and birds).

It is likely that the þulur were added to Skm at a later stage by an unknown compiler (or compilers). That Snorri could not have been the author of the þulur is first of all suggested by the fact that these are missing in mss U and W of SnE. Moreover, Snorri is likely to have regarded such an addendum as superfluous, because Skm already had an extensive section dealing with heiti (cf. SnE 1998, I, 83-109), where poetic synonyms are enumerated in prose lists and subsequently exemplified by skaldic stanzas. It is also important to note that, as can be seen from some of the comments in Skm, Snorri’s approach to the content of such enumerations was mainly a conservative one, that is, he recommended young poets not to use heiti which were not found in the poetry of earlier prominent skalds (see, e.g. SnE 1998, I, 85). The anonymous þulur poet (or poets), on the other hand, inserted into the lists many terms that are otherwise unattested in skaldic poetry. There are, however, some parallels between the prose and the versified enumerations of heiti as well as other evidence which indicate that Snorri might have known certain þulur. While composing his prose lists of poetic synonyms, Snorri may have consulted and used written records which contained heiti, perhaps an early redaction of the þulur.

The þulur are extant in two main redactions. The first, which is found in mss R (41v l. 34-44v l. 7), Tˣ (43v l. 15-46v l. 7) and C (11r l. 12-13v l. 9), includes a sequence of thirty-five lists starting with Sækonunga heiti (Þul Sækonunga) and ending with Sólar heiti (Þul Sólar). The second, preserved in ms. A (17r l. 20-21v l. 27) and partially in B (8r l. 3-9v l. 53), adds another twenty-four þulur in fornyrðislag (Þul Tungls-Þul Sáðs) to the lists in the R, Tˣ, C redaction, and several þulur-like stanzas in dróttkvætt metre have been incorporated into this final section. These dróttkvætt stanzas are only transmitted in ms. A, while ms. B, which is now seriously damaged and difficult to read, breaks off at the very beginning of Þul Fugla. Hence it cannot be ascertained whether the þulur at the end of the sequence were originally incorporated in the lost archetype of the A, B redaction. The order of the þulur in the A, B redaction has also undergone certain rearrangements in the first part of the þulur sequence common to both redactions.

The relation between the two main þulur redactions is a matter of controversy. Bugge (1875) came to the conclusion that the sequence of fifty-nine þulur preserved only in ms. A must be the original set and that the R, Tˣ C redaction contains an incomplete text (cf. also CPB II, 422). Finnur Jónsson (1893c), on the other hand, argued that mss R, Tˣ and C preserve the original set of þulur, while the A, B redaction must have undergone a series of revisions and rearrangements made by later editors who also supplemented the initial sequence with additional lists of heiti. He also dismissed Bugge’s (1875) assumption, based on the latter’s interpretation of some geographical and other names in these lists, that the þulur might have been composed by someone who had a good knowledge of Scotland and northern England, and he rejected Bugge’s attempt to ascribe their authorship to the Orcadian bishop Bjarni Kolbeinsson (1150-1223). According to him, these lists must have been composed by different poets and only later compiled into coherent sequences. As far as dating is concerned, Finnur Jónsson (1893c) believed that the first set of thirty-five þulur could have been compiled in the second half of the twelfth century or around 1200 and the A, B redaction either in the first half of the thirteenth century or even as late as after 1250. These different approaches to the problem of the relationships between the two main redactions of the þulur are reflected in the way they are presented in modern editions.

The þulur appear already in the earliest edition of SnE, Resen’s Edda Íslandorum (RE 1665; cf. Resen 1977) published in 1665 and based on Magnús Ólafsson’s Laufás Edda (LaufE), although in this work the lists of heiti are presented as prose rather than as verse and only in part coincide with the lists found in the medieval mss. The poetic texts of the þulur were published for the first time by Rask in his 1818 edition of the R version of Snorri’s work (SnE 1818, 208-23). Ms. R was also used as the basis for the text of the þulur in the Arnamagnæan edition of SnE (SnE 1848-87, I, 546-93), and subsequently in two other editions of SnE which are referred to in the present edition, SnE 1931 by Finnur Jónsson and Faulkes’s SnE 1998, I. Both of these editors discuss the þulur in their introductions (SnE 1931, xlviii-xlix; SnE 1998, I, xv-xviii), and the latter edition also contains a glossary with English translations of the þulur terms in R as well as of the text of SnE (SnE 1998, II). The Tˣ version of the þulur, a ms. of the R, Tˣ, C redaction, was first published in 1913 by van Eeden (1913, 130-8) and later by Árni Björnsson (SnE 1975, 248-74), as well as in Faulkes’s facsimile of Tˣ (Tˣ 1985, fols 43v-36v). The three medieval fragments of Skm containing the þulur, i.e. mss A, B and C were published in SnE 1848-87, II, 468-93, 551-72, 614-27.

Other than in the editions of SnE, the þulur are included in all major collections of skaldic poetry. In the earliest of these, Guðbrandur Vigfússon’s Corpus poeticum boreale (CPB II, 422-39), the þulur appear throughout in the form they have in ms. A, with the exception of the stanzas in dróttkvætt metre from the final part of the þulur sequence, which are placed in an Appendix (CPB II, 440-1) among similar stanzas contained in other sources; these dróttkvætt þulur are also published separately in all subsequent þulur editions. In a short Introduction to §6: Rhymed Glossaries. Thulor (CPB II, 422-3), the editors explain their choice of ms., judging the R redaction of the þulur to be ‘imperfect and inferior’ to the A version. Finnur Jónsson, on the other hand (Skj AI, BI; followed by Kock in Skald I), presents a layout of the þulur that conforms to his views about the ‘old’ R, Tˣ, C redaction (the thirty-five þulur found in both groups of mss) and the ‘new’ A, B redaction (the twenty-four additional þulur found only in mss A and B). He thus divides the þulur sequence into two parts: the main sequence, which is given in accordance with mss R, Tˣ, C, and the ‘Addition’ (Tillæg) from mss A and B, which contains all the lists of heiti not included in R, Tˣ and C. In the present edition the entire þulur sequence (i.e. the fifty-nine þulur composed in fornyrðislag metre) is given in the order it is recorded in ms. A, while the main mss chosen for the two redactions, with a few exceptions, are mss R and A respectively (for a more detailed discussion, see Introduction to Anon Þulur).

References

4.2.2. Háttatal

4.2.4. The Third Grammatical Treatise

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4.2.3. Þulur

References

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