A lost Eddic formula in Gylfaginning
Remnants of an Eddic stanza about Balder’s death with parallels to Þrymskviða in Gylf 49
Gylfaginning (‘the Deluding of Yilve’) in the Prose Edda is one of our most important sources for Norse-Germanic mythology, since it tells us the myths in a clear and straight-forward way. These retellings are wrapped in a frame wherein a Swedish king named Yilve (Gylfi) is tricked by the gods, here a group of Asian wizards, into believing in Norse mythology. This is medieval Christian euhemerism, but it’s used to retell the Norse myths in mostly original form.
The author of Gylf frequently quotes pre-Christian poems (including now-lost works), and paraphrases others. One example is chapter 37, which summarises and paraphrased the poem Skírnismál, preserved in full in the Poetic Edda. At the end of the chapter the author quotes, for dramatic effect, a variant of the final stanza preserved in the Poetic Edda.
Apart from the quoted stanza we also find traces of the original poem in the prose. For instance Gylf has þá lýsti af hǫndum hennar, bę́ði um lopt ok á lǫg ‘then light shone from her hands, both into the air and over the sea’, which paraphrases Skírn 6: armar lýsto · en af þaðan // allt lopt ok lǫgr ‘her arms shone, but thereof all the air and sea’.
Another chapter, namely 49, retells the story of Balder’s death. It follows the same passage, and at the end it quotes a single poetic stanza. Unlike 37, however, this stanza is not attested elsewhere, and thus seems to come from a lost Eddic poem. As we have seen from 37, the prose in Gylf can still contain traces from the original poetry, and I believe I have found such an instance.
In ch. 49 there is the following passage. This is after Balder (Baldr) has just died from being shot by his blind brother Hath (Hǫðr):
En er goðin vitkuðust þá mę́lti Frigg ok spurði hverr sá vę́ri með ásum, er eignast vildi allar [ástir mínar1 ok hylli, ok vili hann ríða á Hel-veg ok freista, ef hann fái fundit Baldr, ok bjóða Helju út-lausn, ef hon vill láta fara Baldr heim i Ás-garð.
‘But when the gods came to their wits [after Balder’s death], then Frie spoke and asked which one among the Ease wished to earn “all my loves and holdness, and will ride onto the Hellway and see if he can find Balder, and offer Hell a ransom if she will let Balder come home to Osyard.”’
The expression ástir ‘love’, literally ‘loves, affections’ combined with hylli ‘favour, goodwill, grace, holdness’ is very closely reminiscent of Þrk 29, when Thunder (Þórr) is at the wedding in disguise as Frow (Fręyja):
Inn kom in arma · jǫtna systir,
hin’s brúð-féar · biðja þorði:
„Lát-tu þér af hǫndum · hringa rauða
ef þú ǫðlask vill · ástir mínar,
ástir mínar, · alla hylli!‘In came the wretched sister of the ettins,
the one who for the bride-price [= Millner (Mjǫllnir)] had dared ask:
“Slide off from thy hands the red rings,
if thou wilt win my love,
my love, [and] all [my] favour!”
If we change the tense in Gylf so that it is Frow speaking (which may be expected to have been the case in the poem), we get *eignast vill allar ástir mínar ok hylli, which is almost2 identical to the stanza in Þrk. But how should this be explained? I see two possibilities.
It may be that the author of Gylf 49 got this passage directly from Þrk 29.
An original poem underlying Gylf 49 also contained these lines.
Number 1 seems unlikely. After all, the speaker of Þrk 29 is a “wretched” ettin-woman, not the goddess Frie, and there is no clear connection between the two myths that would’ve made the author make such a jump.
On the other hand there are numerous parallels to 2. If we stick to the poem closest at hand, Þrymskviða, it contains numerous lines shared with other poems. The most impressive correspondence is in stanza 14, where the first three lines3 are identically shared with the poem Baldrs draumar. Other examples are found in sts. 24 and 75, and we therefore have a good precedent for tentatively adding these two long-lines to the long list of Norse Eddic poetic formulæ.
so mss. Wormianus and Trajectinus. Regius and Upsaliensis have ástir hennar ‘her love’, but since mínar ‘my’ is the lectio difficilior I have stuck with it.
The only difference is of course that Gylf uses the more common word eignask rather than the rare synonym ǫðlask, but both would participate in vowel-alliteration and so it’s probably just a case of a more common word being used so that the audience can understand.
Sęnn vǫ́ru ę́sir · allir á þingi
ok ǫ́synjur · allar á máli,
ok of þat réðu · ríkir tívar:
‘Soon were the Ease all on the Thing,
and the Ossens all at speech,
and of this counseled the mighty Tews:’
Ok hann þat orða · alls fyrst of kvað: ‘And he this word first did say:’
Hvat ’s með ǫ́sum? · Hvat ’s með ǫlfum? ‘What is with the Ease? What is with the Elves?’ shared with Vǫluspǫ́ 47.