Influences of Pre-Christian Mythology and Christianity on Old Norse Poetry

This study of Vafþrúðnismál sets out to examine how the mythology of the pre-Christian past was reinterpreted to fit the worldview of educated people in thirteenth-century Iceland, and how that medieval Christian view may be understood today. It begins with a survey of the poem in its manuscript context and then proceeds to the possible dating of the mythological Eddic poems (where one must also bear in mind the fact that some poems include apparently contradictory features which may suggest that they evolved over time and cannot be assigned to a single period). The chapter ends with an introduction to the pattern of the Wisdom Contest, of which Vafþrúðnismál is an example.In chapter 2, McGillivray introduces three theorists from whose concepts of time he derives his methodology: Paul Ricoeur, Aron Gurevich, and Mircea Eliade. For Ricoeur, time could be regarded in three different ways: “within-time-ness” (time experienced as a series of unrelated events); “historicality” (a retrospective view of events seen as a single narrative); and “temporality” (which Ricoeur calls “the deepest level” but does not really define). McGillivray calls these “episodic narrative,” “configuration of narrative time,” and “the meaning of the story” (p. 31). Gurevich argues that the mythology of agrarian societies like medieval Iceland tends to be dominated by the cyclical patterns of the sun and the seasons (and it would have been useful to mention Gísli Sigurðsson's extension of this idea to the mythological description of the heavenly bodies). Eliade pointed out that the idea of an eternally repeated cycle was challenged by the medieval Christian view of history as a single linear progression from the Creation to the Last Judgement, but that in medieval Iceland the two views continued to coexist despite the contradiction between them. Chapter 2 continues with an account of the early history of Eddic studies, then considers the divisions of mythological time observed by modern scholars (notably Margaret Clunies Ross and John Lindow), and concludes by outlining two ideas that are less obviously related to mythic time: the pattern of the Wisdom Contest and Terry Gunnell's observation that mythological poems in ljóðaháttr meter are particularly well suited to dramatic performance. Although McGillivray does not say so, this introduces a new sort of mythic time by placing the action in the “here and now” of the audience.Chapters 3–6 contain a detailed analysis of Vafþrúðnismál in which McGillivray demonstrates good judgement and an impressive command of the critical literature but produces no new solutions to unsolved textual problems. He translates Ricoeur's “episodes” into two dialogue “acts” divided by the poem's only stanza of narrative (Vafþrúðnismál 5), with the second “act” having three “scenes”—which may suggest that in this context Gunnell's concern with the practicalities of performance is more directly useful than Ricoeur's theory. In the “first act” (Vafþrúðnismál 1–5), Óðinn asks his wife Frigg for advice, saying that he wants to test the ancient wisdom of the jǫtunn Vafþrúðnir. McGillivray follows Lindow in arguing that Old Norse mythology was a familiar and coherent system in which one reference to a theme implied a mass of others which remained unstated, and this enables him to claim that Óðinn's quest for knowledge in Vafþrúðnismál would remind audiences of his consultation of giant-derived knowledge in such myths as those about Mímir. This may be true, but his summary of the Mímir stories relies heavily on the prose accounts in Gylfaginning and Ynglinga saga and can therefore only be used to describe the understanding of these myths in Christian thirteenth-century Iceland, not as evidence for the mythology of the pre-Christian period. We should also remember that Eddic poets could ignore the tradition when it suited them: in Lokasenna 29,4–6 Óðinn says that Frigg knows the whole of Fate, but in Vafþrúðnismál 2 her anxiety on Óðinn's behalf suggests otherwise. But McGillivray then poses an important question: why does Óðinn seek Frigg's advice and then proceed to ignore it? His answer is that Vafþrúðnismál 3,1–3 contains a magic spell which will compel Frigg's acquiescence, and that what he really wants is her blessing on his expedition, which he duly receives and which may also be a piece of protective magic.Chapter 4 discusses Vafþrúðnismál 6–19, the first scene set in Vafþrúðnir's hall, and points out the provocative rudeness of Óðinn's arrival and his typical adoption of a riddling alias which is not an actual lie. For medieval audiences Vafþrúðnir probably represented “the enemy,” but McGillivray expresses some sympathy with him nonetheless. But in Vafþrúðnismál 6 Óðinn may be expressing his aim quite openly: “Hit vil ek first vita, ef þú fróðr sér / eða alsviðr, jǫtunn.” Most scholars have treated fróðr and alsviðr as synonyms, but it is possible to translate these lines as “First, giant, I want to know if you are (merely) knowledgeable, or wise in every respect.” Most of the poem's examples of the word fróðr concern the knowledge or experience possessed by giants, whereas (al)sviðr is only used by Óðinn and only in what looks like flattery of Vafþrúðnir, usually at moments of apparent danger (see Vafþrúðnismál 34,2 and 42,7). The remaining sections of chapter 4 discuss the four questions with which Vafþrúðnir tests his visitor to discover whether he is knowledgeable enough to be an adequate opponent (Vafþrúðnismál 11–18). His first two questions concern the names of the horses that draw each day and night across the sky (Skínfaxi and Hrímfaxi). These questions and the answers to them seem to support Gurevich and Gísli Sigurðsson's idea of mythological time as an endlessly repeated cycle of day, night, and the heavenly bodies. McGillivray also points out that the last of these four is the only one which it requires knowledge of the future to answer, and he suggests that this is what convinces Vafþrúðnir that “Gagnráðr” is an opponent worthy of him.Chapter 5 studies the first series of twelve numbered questions that Óðinn puts to Vafþrúðnir. McGillivray divides it into three sections of four questions each and gives a generally convincing account of their logical sequence. Whereas Vafþrúðnir's questions were about names, Óðinn asks about the origins of the cosmos (questions one to four), suggesting a perception of time like that suggested by Gurevich. Óðinn then moves on to the ancestry of giants, including the earliest memory of Vafþrúðnir himself (questions five to eight). The logic linking the last four questions is more difficult to see, although McGillivray argues convincingly that Hræsvelgr, the eagle-shaped giant who is said to cause the wind, may mean “wreck swallower,” which would supply a link to Óðinn's next question, on the god Njǫrðr, who is a god of the sea. The text of the eleventh question is damaged, but it clearly refers to the einherjar, Óðinn's chosen warriors, who fight every day in preparation for their role at Ragnarǫk, and this is the beginning of a gradual move toward questions about the future. The last question in this section brings a moment of sudden danger, as Óðinn asks how Vafþrúðnir knows all these secrets. This is hardly a mythological question, but Vafþrúðnir fails to notice this and replies that he knows the secrets of giants and gods because he has been in nine worlds below misty Hel, into which people die after living in Hel. But if he is right to accept this as a mythological question, he ought to remember that the rules of the Wisdom Contest only allow the questioner to ask questions to which he knows the mythological answers. This would imply that Vafþrúðnir's opponent must also have undergone death and a return to life—an experience which only Óðinn is known to have had (see Hávamál 138–41 and 145). If he had really been alsviðr “wise in every respect,” Vafþrúðnir might have won the contest at this point by unmasking the identity of his guest, so the poem's medieval audience may have felt that he has been given a fair chance.Chapter 6 discusses Óðinn's last six questions, which move into the mythological future. The theme of the first, second, and fourth of these is renewal, as Óðinn asks which human beings will survive Fimbulvetr, “the terrible winter”; who will replace the sun after she has been overtaken by Fenrir; and which of the Æsir will survive the fire of Surtr. The third question is more problematic: “what maidens glide over the sea as they travel?” (Vafþrúðnismál 48). This is probably a riddle to which the answer is “waves”; if so, Vafþrúðnir again fails to notice that his opponent is breaking the rules, and he responds with a mythological answer which has yet to be convincingly explained but may refer to the renewal of ancestral female spirits. The list of gods who will survive Ragnarǫk—two sons of Óðinn (the just avengers Víðarr and Váli) and two sons of Þórr (Móði “Courage” and Magni “Strength”) —suggests a different ethical viewpoint from that of Vǫluspá, where it is the innocent who will survive. The last two questions, both dictated by the pattern of the Wisdom Contest, are: “How will Óðinn die?” and “what did Óðinn whisper in the ear of the dead Baldr?” The first provokes an answer in which Vafþrúðnir unwittingly condemns himself, since if Óðinn is to die at Ragnarǫk he must survive the Wisdom Contest, which implies that Vafþrúðnir will not. Óðinn's last question is one to which only he can possibly know the answer, and so he simultaneously wins the contest, reveals his identity, and condemns Vafþrúðnir to death.The commentary in chapters 3–6 provides good evidence for Gurevich's cyclical view of the mythology behind Vafþrúðnismál, and perhaps also for Eliade's (since the poem's conclusion can be interpreted as representing a single rebirth rather than an eternally repeated cycle), but it is hard to see why Ricoeur's view is needed. It might have more relevance to Alvíssmál, which McGillivray discusses in chapter 7, but his analysis of it again seems more indebted to Gunnell's work than to that of Ricoeur. Alvíssmál also resembles a Wisdom Contest in some respects, although its protagonist is Þórr, who is not usually renowned for his wisdom; he makes no attempt to conceal his identity; and Alvíss will die, not because there is a question he cannot answer, but because he is so full of answers that he fails to notice that the sun has risen. As McGillivray hints (p. 185), this may suggest that Alvíssmál is a parody of a Wisdom Contest, in which mythological knowledge is shown to be ineffective compared with practical cunning. Unfortunately, McGillivray's book seems to have gone to press too soon for him to have been able to consider my argument (in Saga Book XLI (2017), 79–96) that the woman Þórr is protecting is probably not his daughter and that the contest may be taking place in a human hall rather than in Ásgarðr. This could have supported his argument that Alvíssmál has a pivotal function in Codex Regius, linking the mythological content of its first half to the human stories of its second.Apart from an excellent bibliography, the book ends with an interesting but rather inconclusive chapter which considers the possible role of mythological thinking in our own time

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