1. Report on the Symposium on the Methodology of Skaldic Editing

King’s Manor, University of York, Saturday 13 April 2002

Participants: Katrina Attwood, Jayne Carroll, Margaret Clunies Ross, Alison Finlay, Naotashi Furuta (observing), Kari Ellen Gade, Judith Jesch, Guñrún Nordal, John McKinnell, Rory McTurk, Edith Marold, Ray Page, Russell Poole, Desmond Slay, Matthew Townend, Diana Whaley, Tarrin Wills, Valgerñur Erna Ãorvaldsdóttir.

Digest of points relating to editing: (raised by speakers listed or in the discussion following their presentations. Materials relating to the presentations can be found on the project web-site).

Judith Jesch: ‘The “Separate Saga” vs. Heimskringla as a base text for Sigvatr’s Víkingarvísur’
Addressed the possibility of following one main text (and criteria for choosing it). Bear in mind Jonna Louis-Jensen’s paper in Reykholt recommending keeping whole MS tradition in play rather than giving too much emphasis to a main text.

Diana Whaley: ‘Quantity and Quality in the verse texts in Hallfreñar saga’
Testing the principle in the manual that priority be given to the prose text preserving most verses, and how this should be overridden where better readings exist elsewhere (particularly in cases of ‘on balance’ preference, rather than clear cases).
Discussion of what is most appropriate for the expected readership; non-specialist readers wanting authoritative translation may not give due weight to alternative possibilities presented in notes. Question of weight to be given to clearly secondary, but still interesting and valid readings: should these be confined to notes? Agreed that in unusual cases, more than one version of the verse could be presented.

Russell Poole: ‘When and where to depart from attested readings?’
Question where emendation is appropriate; where ‘best reading’ seems clearly wrong, should suggested emendation appear in text? Proposal that such instances be marked in the text by, e.g., obelus to signal uncertainty.

Kari Ellen Gade: ‘The order of Bersǫglisvísur’
How to locate verses within a poem when there is no textual evidence for their placement? Agreed that these should be at the end of the poem. Should they be differently numbered, or numbers marked for uncertainty?
Noted in passing that editors should record the location and numbering of each verse as it appears in Skj. (this instruction was omitted from the editors’ manual).
Names and configurations of poems invented by Finnur Jónsson will be abandoned where unjustified, but these names and locations need to be traceable.
Recognition that the category of vísur may be looser than drápa, flokkr to be made in the introduction?
Commentary on the question of ordering to be placed in introduction to individual poems.

Ray Page: ‘Poems for which no medieval manuscripts exist (Norwegian Rune Poem)’
There are cases where early printed texts are more reliable and / or earlier than MSS and should be treated as ‘main text’. Evidence for two versions, one written, one deriving from oral tradition. Should both be represented? In the short verses discussed, variants could easily be included.
Is it possible for the edition to represent features such as spacing of words, punctuation, capitalisation and layout on the page, which may have significance? Noted that these would be accessible in MS images.
Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems may be too late to belong in skaldic corpus at all. It was agreed that inclusiveness was desirable - but the word ‘skaldic’ in edition’s title is perhaps over-restrictive.

Edith Marold: ‘Editing the runic corpus’
Criteria for definition of ‘skaldic’ discussed in determining whether to edit inscriptions. Again inclusiveness considered desirable; though inscriptions with poetic elements, but not in fully poetic form, would be excluded, as would non-Scandinavian material.
A different presentation would be needed for this material, with information on the nature, location, dating etc. of the runic object.
Normalisation: would Old Norwegian/Old Swedish be appropriate?

Tarrin Wills: ‘Electronic Editing’
Instructions for this will be updated in a new version of the manual.
Kennings need to be marked up with a system of brackets (which will not be visible in edition) for inclusion in index of kennings.
Would preserving the elements of kennings (rather than just referents) in translations of verses be too confusing for readers? It was agreed that in exceptionally complex cases a ‘translation of the translation’ might be appropriate.
It was suggested that appropriateness of the edition’s format could be tested using a ‘focus group’ of students, historians etc.
Reykjavik Times had caused problems of compatibility. Editors are asked to use a new font called ReykholtTimes which can be downloaded from the web-site.

Margaret Clunies Ross:
Emended bibliographic guidelines have been drawn up (available on web-site, and to be included in new edition of manual). It includes a list of items frequently referred to; editors can suggest additions to this.
Reykjavik or Reykjavík??

Alison Finlay

References