Carol Clover
More than any other mythological poem in the Edda, Hárbarðsljόð has been regarded as problematic in a number of respects. Metrically it ranges through fornyrðislag, ljόðaháttr, galdralag, and sections in what seems to be prose; formally, it consists of a series of apparently unmotivated insults, boasts, threats and untruths exchanged between Óðinn and Þόrr. Þόrr has come to a fjord and wants to cross; Óðinn, calling himself Hárbarðr, has the ferryboat on the other side and refuses him passage. Þόrr apparently initiates the exchange of insults, but Óðinn emerges as the winner and Þόrr has to find another way around the watery obstacle. Such hostility between the two gods is not evidenced elsewhere, while many of the incidents mentioned during the course of the poem have no parallels in the rest of the mythological corpus. Scholars in the early part of the century sought to emend or excise the problematic verses, but in recent years critics have endeavoured to provide various explanations for the difficulties the poem offers.
Carol Clover follows earlier scholars in showing the poem to belong to a common medieval genre, known in English as a flyting. In this genre two men or occasionally a man and a woman boast, insult each other, and challenge each other’s honour; it is a form attested in Old English, Middle High German and very frequently in Old Norse, where it is generally referred to as a senna and shares some characteristics with the mannjafnaðr. This is another verbal activity in which the merits of two men are compared, sometimes by the subjects themselves and sometimes by others. (On the differences between the two genres, see Swenson.) The scope for discord in a senna or mannjafnaôr contest is considerable, given the importance of honour and saving face in Old Norse society.
Clover wrote about the flyting in two articles published close together in time. Clover 1980 places the famously puzzling Unferth episode in Beowulf in the context of the Germanic flyting tradition, while the 1979 article reprinted below argues that Hárbarðsljόð represents a parody of the flyting form in which, contrary to the expected outcome, the loser of the competition is the more manly and heroic of the contenders, while the woman-chasing and unheroic Óðinn emerges as the winner; Óðinn displays the verbal skill necessary to win the contest while Þόrr flounders. Bax and Padmos (1983) have challenged Clover’s reading of the poem as parodic, with an argument drawn from pragmatics and discourse analysis. They find that the pattern of the verbal exchanges in Hárbarðsljόð is highly structured and organised and that Þόrr understands the rules of the contest just as well όðinn does. They regard the bulk of the poem (sts. 15–46) as a mannjafnaðr, framed by two sennur (exchanges of insult), and they suggest that the flyting should be regarded as elaborate rather than parodic. Little other work has been done on the poem; Clunies Ross (1973) discusses the obscure verses 42–47, suggesting that the term ’a ring for the hand’ which causes Þόrr so much offence may refer to the anus. Santini looks for classical parallels to the poem’s situation; finding them in Virgil and Ovid, the most popular classical authors of the medieval period, he suggests that the Old Norse composer of Hárbarðsljόð may have known their works.
Carolyne Larrington
Bax, Marcel and Tineke Padmos. “Two Types of Verbal Dueling in Old Icelandic: the Interactional Structure of the Senna and the Mannjafnaðr in Hárbarðzljόð.” Scandinavian Studies 55 (1983): 149–74.
Clover, Carol. “The Germanic Context of the UnferÞ Episode.” Speculum 55 (1980): 444–468.
——. “Hárbarðsljόð.” Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Ed Joseph R. Strayer. New York: Scribner, 1982–89. 6: 98.
Clunies Ross, Margaret. “Hildr’s ring: a problem in the Ragnarsdrápa, Strophes 8–12.” Mediaeval Scandinavia 6 (1973): 75–92.
Santini, Carlos. “Die Frage der Harbardsljod in Bezug auf die klassische literarische Tradition.” Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. Ed. Teresa Pároli. Proceedings of the Seventh International Saga Conference. Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1990. 487–508.
See, Klaus von. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 2: Götterlieder. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1997.
Swenson, Karen. Performing Definitions: Two Genres of Insult in Old Norse Literature. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1991.
[Hárbarðsljόð] ist eine recht plumpe, formlose, absichtlich plebejisch gehaltene Dichtung, die sich unter den andern Eddaliedern ausnimmt, wie der Thräl unter den Jarlen.
[Hárbarðsljόð is a quite clumsy, formless, deliberately vulgar poem, a singular work that stands among the other Eddic poems like a thrall among earls.]
W. v. Wolzogen, Die Edda, 1876
Although Hárbarðsljόð has long since been manumitted, it has never been fully accepted into the Eddic peerage. From the critics’ point of view, the questionable quality is not its flyting or senna-mannjafnaðr form (used effectively in the neighboring poems) nor its disrespectful picture of Þόrr as physical giant and mental midget (a standard image, realized with particular success in the nearby Þrymskviða), but its radical formal disharmony, which has from the outset conditioned literary judgment of the poem. In this respect opinion has not changed much since Finnur Jόnsson declared Hárbarðsljόð a “forvirret blanding af ligt og uligt, af vers og prosa, af de fineste bemærkninger og de smagløseste flovheder.”1 His solution was to posit a late, tasteless, and metrically illiterate interpolator whom he held responsible for all lines of prose and ljόöaháttr (about one-third of the poem) and to construct out of the málaháttr remainder a version which could “stilles op ved siden af de smukkeste eddakvad.”2 The modern view that the text as we have it is both original and relatively old has, however, quelled speculations on a purer forerunner,3 and recent commentators have tended to take the poem as it is, either making a virtue of its vices4 or letting it stand as an inexplicable weed in the larger garden of Norse poetry.5It should be said in Finnur Jόnsson’s defense that he at least recognized that the poem’s structure wanted an explanation. This is the point of departure for the following remarks, which argue that there is more to Hárbarðsljόð than has met the critical eye—specifically, that certain of its formal irregularities are not entirely random but are schematically linked with the joke, and that the joke, in turn, is not only a comedy on the character of Þόrr or a political allegory, in the Hellenic spirit, on the confrontation between landowner and military aristocrat,6 but a parody on the tradition of the senna-mannjafnaðr itself.
The number of extant examples, the widespread incidence, and the antiquity of the Germanic flyting give us a picture which, it might be argued, is fuller and hence more susceptible of generic description than even the well-publicized Germanic heroic lay.7 The flyting may be loosely defined as a stylized exchange between hostile speakers of traditional provocations (insults, boasts, threats, and curses), typically organized in the basic pattern Claim, Denial, and Counterclaim.8 It is not, strictly speaking, a type-scene of Oral Theory9 but a set piece drawing on a common stock of clichés which are sufficiently genre-specific to identify the nature of the exchange despite considerable variation in matters of length, elaborateness, mode (prose or poetry), formal status (dependent or independent),10 and intention. Because it is a traditional form governed by the usual principle of variation, no single example stands as an epitome, and examples are seldom sufficiently congruent to constitute analogues or versions in the usual sense.
But if the whole poem has no counterpart, its individual ingredients are abundantly paralleled elsewhere in the corpus. The “sundering flood” setting, for example, is a venerable and widespread tradition,11 represented in the three Helgi poems, Ketils saga hængs (chs. 4 and 5), Gríms saga loðin-kinna (ch. 1), HjálmÞés saga ok Qlvis (ch. 12), Sverris saga (ch. 131), Saxo’s Gesta Danorum,12 the Norse versions of the “quarrel of the queens” in the Sigurðr tradition (Vǫlsunga saga and Snorra Edda), 13 the Nibelungenlied (Âventiure 25; see below), Maldon, a proto-episode in Beowulf,14 and, in earlier Latin sources, in the anonymous Liber Historiae Erancorum (ch. 41) and Widukind’s Res Gestae Saxonicae.15 It is curious that the obviously stereotypical nature of the setting in Hbl has not discouraged scholarly efforts to determine its exact geographical location.16
Hbl shares with most of the over-water flytings a dramatic situation which pits a traveling hero against a “quarrelsome coastguard” who acts as territorial warden. An unusually close analogue in this respect is Aventiure 25 of the Nibelungenlied:17 in both accounts a traveling hero (Þόrr; Hagen) solicits passage from an intransigent ferryman (Hárbarðr; the verge [ferryman]); there is shouting over the water (an unnamed sund [sound]; the Danube); the traveler offers a reward (Þόrr offers Hárbarðr breakfast from his knapsack; Hagen offers the verge a gold ring form the tip of his sword); the ferryman is in the service of another man (Hildόlfr; Gelpfrât) and refuses, on grounds of his employer’s instructions, to grant passage; there is some question of status indignity (Hárbarðr being Óðinn, Þόrr’s unrecognized father; the verge being ’of such standing that it is unfit for him to render services’);18 one of the contenders has assumed a false name (όðinn: Hárbarðr; Hagen: Amelrîch), thereby deluding the other into a misapprehension of the situation; and there is, finally, the reference to the ferryman’s marital status (the reference to Sif’s infidelity in st. 48; the verge is said to want the ring for his bride).19 The comparison is a cogent demonstration of the Hbl poet’s literary conservatism. The occurrence of a “ferocious-ferryman” flyting at the Norse and Austrian extremities of Germanic literature suggests both antiquity and currency, and we may fairly assume that its dramatic situation had the force of a cliché even to an early audience.
The identification (“segðu til nafns Þíns” [tell me your name, st. 8], “segia mun ec til nafns míns” [I’d tell my name, st. 9], etc.) is a virtually universal feature of the flyting and is too familiar to require examples.20The matching of personal histories and the blend of boast and insult are equally characteristic, best represented in Magnússona saga, Ǫrvar-Odds saga (ch. 27), Maldon, Beowulf (the UnferÞ episode), and the Helgi lays. The imputations of unmanliness and sexual oddity (e.g., “Hárbarðr inn ragi” [the pervert, sts. 27, 51] and the breeches insult in st. 6; see note 34 below) as well as curses and threats of violence (“ec mynda Þic í hel drepa,” etc. [I would knock you into hell, st. 27]) are likewise a virtual sine qua non of the genre. Syntactic symmetry and verbal repetitions (e.g., Hbl sts. 1–3, 19–20, 23–24, 29–30) are defining characteristics of the form, and the use of a repeated challenge formula plus name (“hvat vanntu Þá meðan, Þόrr?” [What were you doing meanwhile, sts. 15, 18, etc.]) has conspicuous parallels in Lokasenna (“Þegi Þú, Heimdallr” [Shut up, Heimdallr, st. 48]), Bandamanna saga (“Þar sitr Þú, Járnskeggi” [There you sit, Járnskeggi]), and Ǫrvar-Odds saga (“Sjόlfr, vart eigi Þar” [Sjόlfr, you were not there]).
This tally of correspondences—it may be argued that Hbl is in fact hypertypical—leaves no doubt as to the author’s mastery of the tradition. When he therefore distorts the conventions, we may assume that he does so intentionally and, presumably, for comic effect. There are two major features or norms which are consistently distorted in Hbl. One has to do with the verbal skill of the contenders and the other has to do with what will be called the hard life/soft life opposition. Because these are central to the analysis, it is necessary to review in some detail their normal expression in the wider corpus.
The flyting, like its near relative the wisdom dialogue, is conceived as a certamen vocis [oral contest], with its own rules and its own winners and losers. The equation between physical and verbal combat, with language equivalent to ammunition, is the working metaphor of the flyting, expressed in such speech figures as orðum bregðask [battle with words] in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, sakask sáryrðom [fight with wound-words] in Lokasenna, onbindan beadurune [unleash war-words] in Beowulf (v. 501a), and, conversely, in such kennings for battle as sverða senna [quarrel of swords], etc. It comes as no surprise, then, that the chief attribute of flyting contenders is eloquence. Of Sinfjǫtli (Helgakviða Hundingsbana I) it is said that he “ s vara kunni / oc við ǫðlinga / orðom scipta” [knew how to answer and to converse with kings]. Saxo’s flyting master is Ericus Disertus (Eiríkr inn málspaki, Eric the Eloquent), described as a man ‘better spoken than all other people,” ‘superior in words,’ ‘stronger in tongue,’ and ‘champion in argument’ (altercationum athleta).21 His opponent Grep is also well spoken, but his eloquence is ‘not so much excellent as impudent, for he surpassed all in tenacity of speech’ (Saxo 5). The Þyle UnferÞ’s forensic talents are self-evident, and his keen wit is acknowledged by Beowulf himself (v. 589b); Loki, in Lokasenna, is “auðigr … í andsvorum” [rich in rejoinders, st. 5]; Ófeigr, the flyting artist of Bandamanna saga, is characterized at the outset as “spekingr mikill ok ráðagørðar maðr” (both epithets suggesting verbal skill in the saga idiom); and King Sigurðr is acknowledged to be the “sléttorðari” [more fluent of speech] in the Magnússona saga flyting. It should be stressed that eloquence is as much an attribute of losers (Grep, UnferÞ, King Sigurðr, etc.) as it is of winners, presumably on the dramatic principle that combat between unequals, whether physical or verbal, is bad theater.22
At the heart of the flyting lies the opposition between the hard and the soft life. The hard life consists of traveling, adventuring, and above all fighting for one cause or another; the soft life consists of such inferior alternatives as being a ‘home-dragger’ (heimdragi), sleeping, talking (as opposed to acting), eating and drinking (especially of overly fine food and drink), and sexual dalliance. Action vs. talk is the thrust of Skarpheðinn’s serial insults to the AlÞing chieftains (Njáls saga, chs. 119–20), e.g., “er Þér meiri nauðsyn at hefna foður Þíns en spá mér slíkar spár” [you would be better employed avenging your father than making me prophecies]. Similarly, Guðmundr’s charge in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I (repeated in variant form in Helgakviða Hundingsbana 2):
Væri ycr, Sinfiǫtli, sœmra myclo
gunni at heyia ос glaða ǫrno,
enn sé όnýtom orðom at bregðaz. (St. 45)
[It would better beseem you, Sinfjǫtli, to give battle and gladden eagles than to fight with useless words.]
The entire Magnússona saga flyting (ch. 21) builds on the contrast between adventurer and stay-at-home, and King Sigurðr concludes a litany of his foreign deeds by chiding his brother Eysteinn, who has stayed behind, with the words “ek hygg, at eigi hefir Þú enn hleypt heimdraganum” [it seems to me that you still haven’t managed to break away from home (literally ‘stopped home-dragging’)].23 Likewise, each of the nineteen stanzas of the epic Ǫrvar-Odds saga flyting poses an explicit antithesis between martial action and some form of trivial stay-at-home behavior, e.g.:24
Sigurðr, vart eigi,
er á Sælundi felldak
bræðr böðharða,
Brand ok Agnar,
Ásmund, Ingjald,
Álfr var inn fimmti;
en Þú heima látt
í höll konungs,
skauð hernumin. (St. 13)
[Sigurðr, you weren’t on Zealand when I felled the battle-hard brothers Brandr and Agnarr, Ásmundr and Ingjaldr, and Álfr was the fifth— while you were lying at home in the king’s hall, full of tall stories, a captive gelding.]
Þú látt, Sigurðr,
í sal meyja,
meðan við Bjarma
börðumst tvisvar,
háðum hildi
hauksnarliga,
en Þú, seggr, í sal
svaft und blæju.” [St. 8]
[You, Sigurðr, were lying in the maidens” chamber while we twice battled the Permians. War we waged, hawk-like, while you, hero, slept under linen in the hall.]
Contempt for amorous play—always contrasted to glorious deeds of arms—is Oddr’s main theme:
Slόtt við meyjar
málÞing, Sjόlfr,
meðan loga létum
leika um kunni. … (St. 7)
[You were chattering with girls, Sjόlfr, while we sent the household up in flames. …]
… knáttak Þeira,
áðr Þaðan færak,
átján lýða
aldri næma,
en Þú gjögraðir,
gárungr vesall,
sið um aftan
til sængr Þýjar. (St. 19)
[I succeeded, before leaving from there [Gautland], in taking eighteen men’s lives—while you, wretched fool, staggered your way late at night to the slave girl’s bed.]
Þar er sverð ruðum
hvöss á jarli
fyr Hléseyju;
en Þú hallaðist
heima á milli,
kynmálasamr,
kálfs ok Þýjar. (St. 12)
[Sjόlfr, you weren’t there when we reddened our sharp swords on the earl off LæsØ—while you, lascivious talker, were at home wavering between the calf and the slave girl.]
Likewise Guðmundr’s claim to Sinfjǫtli in HHI:
Pér mun Hǫðbroddr Helga finna,
flugtrauðan gram, í flota miðiom,
sá er opt hefir ǫrno sadda,
meðan Þú á qvernom kystir Þýiar. (St. 35)
[There Hǫðbroddr will find Helgi, flight-scorning prince, in the middle of the fleet; he has often sated the eagles, while you were at the mill kissing slave girls.]
The examples can be multiplied. It is a rare flyting between men that does not pit the active life against domestic pastimes—as Oddr sums it up, “Sigr hafða ek, / sazt kyrr meðan” [I had victory while you were sitting still]. The presence of the same opposition in the UnferÞ episode in Beowulf, complete with the characteristic sarcasm about unmanly activities, guarantees its antiquity in Germanic tradition. Nor is there any question as to the general bias, which consistently and unambiguously favors martial heroism over all other activities, and charges of this sort give the upper hand to such patent heroes as Beowulf, Ǫrvar-Oddr, and Skarpheðinn.25 That home-staying, sexual frivolities, talking, eating, and drinking are equivalently inferior alternatives is evident in such flytings as Ǫrvar-Oddr’s, in which the stylized format results in a clear set of plus and minus equations. The prejudice is further borne out in the grandiloquent formulations of that self-styled and irascible moral arbiter of early Scandinavian letters, Starkaðr the Old, whose earlier life was spent as an ascetic and mobile warrior in pursuit of traditional heroic honor, and whose later life was devoted to the wholesale castigation of a new generation of decadent and effeminate men who stayed at home and languished in the trivial pleasures of food, wine, conversation, women, and soft beds.26
* * *
Hárbarðsljόð falls into three distinct sections: a preliminary section (sts. 1– 13), a central exchange or flyting proper (sts. 14–54), and a conclusion (sts. 55–60). Magnus Olsen has compared its outer structure to that of the dräpa: “efter en innledning kommer rekken av stefjabalkar, adskilte ved stef’et … og slœmr danner slutningspartiet.”27 The flyting proper is commonly said to reflect, albeit badly in its present form, a proto-scheme of 2 x 5 stanzas marked off by the challenge formula hvat vanntu Þá meðan [‘what did you do meanwhile’].28 If the internal structure of the poem is chaotic, the outer design is by Eddic standards bold and clear.
The preliminary section opens with the usual shouting of belligerent questions over the sound.29 Þόrr asks the ferryman to take him across (sts. 3–4), offering as payment some food from his knapsack (possibly a comic inversion of a more traditional and appropriate offer of gold)30 and reciting in detail what he himself ate for breakfast that morning.31 The ferryman (st. 4) responds ironically (“Árligom vercom / hrόsar Þú verðinom” [‘How proud you are of your morning deeds!’]) and goes on to inform Þόrr that his mother is dead (“dauð hygg ec at Þín mόðir sé’).32 This unexpected morbidity produces a response in Þόrr which is neither poetic nor complete: he merely records his distress, a fact which has led to the positing of lost lines.33 The ferryman goes on to accuse him of looking like a beggar (a familiar flyting insult)34 and, declaring reluctance to do business with robbers and horse-thieves, asks Þόrr to identify himself. Þόrr does so stolidly (st. 9) and requests the ferryman to do likewise. The ferryman’s answer sets the tone for the rest of the piece: after giving a patent pseudonym, he declares in mock piety “hyle urn nafn sialdan” [seldom do I hide my name]. Þόrr, sensing the taunting tones in Hárbarðr’s following words (st. 12), declares that if he did not fear the effect of the cold currents on his private parts, he would surely cross the sound and attack Hárbarðr,35 to which Hárbarðr replies that he will simply wait, adding, “fanntaðu mann inn harðara / at Hrungni dauðan” [you have encountered no fiercer man since the death of Hrungnir]. With this baiting allusion to a specific past event, Hárbarðr provokes Þόrr into a full-fledged flyting response:
Hins viltu nú geta, er við Hrungnir deildom,
sá inn stόrúðgi iotunn, er όr steini var hǫfuðit á;
Þό lét ec hann falla oc fyrir hníga.
Hvat vanntu Þá meðan , Hárbarðr? (St.15)
[You refer to my fight with Hrungnir, that haughty giant with the head of stone; I brought him down, made him sink before me. What did you do meanwhile, Hárbarðr?]
Þόrr’s stanza is in perfect mannjafnaðr form: he dilates on the Hrungnir episode, aggrandizes his own role in it, generates a coventional challenge formula, and waits for an equivalent response. Hárbarðr answers:
Var ее með Fiolvari fimm vetr alla,
í ey Þeiri, er Algrún heitir;
vega vér Þar knáttom oc val fella,
margs at freista, mans at kosta. (St. 16)
[I was with Fjǫlvarr five winters, on that island which is called Algrœn; there we did battle, wreaked slaughter, ventured many a deed, and tried out the slave girls.]
The first seven half-lines are in flyting terms pedestrian enough, but the eighth, with its gratuitous sexual revelation, is unprecedented. If Hárbarðr has deliberately tried to throw his adversary off balance, he succeeds. Forgetting the rest of Hárbarðr’s stanza, and indeed the very flyting which he himself lately initiated in such booming terms, Þόrr fixes on just those last three words. His bewilderment, mixed perhaps with a certain degree of prurient interest, is palpable:
Hverso snúnoðo yðr konor yðrar? (St. 17)
[How did you get your women?]
With this lame rejoinder the form collapses. What the audience expects is not a single line, but a full stanza; not a question (the form precludes ingenuous questions) but a declarative statement (Denial and Counterclaim); and, of course, poetry and not prose. But Hárbarðr reestablishes at least a poetic format in his galdralag reply:36
Sparcar átto vér konor, ef oss at spǫcum yrði,
horscar átto vér konor, ef oss hollar væri;
Þær όr sandi síma undo
oc όr dali diúpom
grund um grόfo;
varð еc Þeim einn ǫllum efri at ráðom,
hvílda еc hiá Þeim systrom siau,
oc hafða ec geð Þeira alt oc gaman.
Hvað vanntu Þá meðan, Þόrr? (St. 18)
[We had lively women, wise to us; we had intelligent women, generous to us. They wound ropes out of sand and the bottom from the deepest valley. I alone prevailed over all of them; I slept by the seven sisters and got from them full satisfaction and pleasure. What did you do meanwhile, Þόrr?]37
In an ironic imitation of the Hrungnir stanza, Hárbarðr expands on what is presented as a historical incident, boasts of his prowess in martial terms (“varð ec Þeim einn ǫllum / efri at ráðom”),38 affixes the challenge formula, and waits for an answer. But the humor lies in the incongruity between the tone and the event: this is behavior which in another flyting would be exposed by the opposition as a point of shame is here treated as a point of pride. Not only does Hárbarðr not suppress it, he volunteers it; not only does he volunteer it, he offers it as an accomplishment equivalent to the slaying of Hrungnir. The opposition is traditional, but the bias is exactly reversed. This stanza and others like it amount to generic heresy—a feature of Hárbarðr’s performance which has not been sufficiently appreciated.
But Þόrr, constitutionally oblivious to irony, is unaware that the genre has been upended. His reaction to Hárbarðr’s mocking repetition of hvat vanntu Þá meðan? is automatic and literal, and he forges ahead with yet another tale of giant killing:
Ec drap Þiaza, inn Þrúðmόðga iǫtun,
upp ec varp augom Allvalda sonar
á Þann inn heiða himin;
Þau еrо merki mest minna verca,
Þau er allir menn síðan um sé.
Hvat vanntu meðan, Hárbarðr? (St. 19)
[I killed Þjazi, the fierce giant, and I hurled the eyes of Allvaldi’s son into the bright sky; these are the greatest marks of my deeds, which all men can see henceforward. What did you do meanwhile, Hárbarðr?]
Hárbarðr counters with another unorthodox episode:
Miclar manvélar еc hafða við myrcriðor,
Þá er ec vélta Þær frá verom;
harðan iǫtun ec hugða Hlébarð vera,
gaf hann mér gambantein,
enn ec vélta hann όr viti. (St. 20)
[Great love-wiles I had with those night-riders, those whom I lured from their husbands; I think Hlébarðr a fierce giant: he gave me his wand, and I drove him out of his wits.]
To which Þόrr responds:
Illom huga launaðir Þú Þá gόðar giafar. (St. 21)
[You repaid good gifts with an evil mind.]
Again Hárbarðr has produced a boast lacking the challenge formula on which Þόrr’s ability to generate a full stanza so utterly depends, and again Þόrr is reduced to a fragmentary response, in prose, not to the stanza as a whole but only to the final lines (where the formula ought to be).
This pattern recurs throughout the flyting proper. The formula Hvat vanntu Þá meðan? occurs nine times, five times spoken by Þόrr and four times by Hárbarðr. To each of Hárbarðr’s citations Þόrr responds with a stereotypical boast stanza of roughly the same form and dimensions as stanzas 15 (on Hrungnir) and 18 (on Þjazi) cited above: stanza 23 recounts a battle against giant women; stanza 29 recounts a battle against the sons of Svárangr; stanzas 37/39 (stanza 38 is an interruption) recount a battle against berserk women of Hlésey. Þόrr’s response to the challenge formula is perfectly conditioned: at every one of Hárbarðr’s citations he automatically embarks on a long stanza beginning “ec drap” [I killed] or “ec var austr” [I was east]; it is only in response to the challenge formula that he generates such boast stanzas—or, with the exception of st. 47, full stanzas at all. His ability to perform his role in the flyting thus appears to be entirely contingent on his opponent’s adherence to established format. Hárbarðr’s failure to provide the necessary formula at the expected moment robs Þόrr of a real reply and reduces him to fragmentary threats of violence or expressions of confusion or rage.
On the other hand, Hárbarðr’s responses to the challenge formulas are—their boastful tone notwithstanding—radically unconventional. Three have erotic topics (sts. 18, 20, 30), and two (sts. 24 and 40) appear to be allusions to Óðinn’s associations with death.39 As for form, only the first (st. 18) follows the normal recipe. Of the remainder (sts. 20, 24, 30, and 40), none uses the challenge formula (and one is a half-stanza). In other words, Hárbarðr does not use the challenge formula, as convention requires, at the end of the stanza as a pivotal device: twice (sts. 22 and 28) it is linked with fragmentary stanzas (one an ironic one-line proverb) and once it appears as a single speech line (st. 36). It is particularly this last occurence that points up the gratuitous and baiting nature of Hárbarðr’s performance.
From this emerges a consistent structural logic. The flyting proper up to st. 42 (after which both the form and the argument degenerate) consists of five four-stanza “sequences” (14–17, 18–21, 22–25, 28–31, and 36–41), all of which conform to the same rhetorical and formal scheme. The first stanza of each sequence (14, 18, 22, 28, 36) is spoken by Hárbarðr and includes the challenge formula.40 The second stanza of each sequence (15, 19, 23, 29, and 37/39)41 is spoken by Þόrr and consists of a lengthy boast stanza capped with a challenge formula. The third stanza of each sequence (16, 20, 24, 30, and 40) is spoken by Hárbarðr and consists of a pseudo-boast (on an incorrect topic) without a challenge formula. The fourth stanza of each sequence (17, 21, 25, 31, 41) is spoken by Þόrr and consists of a single prose line (in the case of stanza 25, a faulty poetic line). Thus:
It should be added that these five sequences are only the most schematic representations of what appears to be an underlying habit of mind; partial or proto-sequences may also be discerned in sts. 3–5, 9–11, 47–49, and 56– 57. Indeed, if we add to the list of Þόrr’s broken replies the similar st. 5 of the preliminary (in which he recoils at the news of his mother’s death; see above) and the equally similar st. 57 of the conclusion (his perplexed response to Hárbarðr’s long set of travel directions),42 we have accounted for all six of Þόrr’s prose lines.43
It is thus clear that not only the poem’s structural irregularities (the breakdown into prose dialogue and the variation in stanza length) but also its conspicuous regularities (the technically complete boast stanzas) are to a certain extent conditioned by context. The interaction between the speakers is in fact scheduled, and their performances are therefore predictable—Þόrr’s largely so, and Hárbarðr’s loosely so. Hbl has no large plot to speak of; it works instead on a simple principle of repeated forms, each form constituting a miniature drama in which Þόrr is, generically speaking, seduced and abandoned by his ironic adversary. Þόrr’s prose or near-prose verses are the punch lines manqués, marking the temporary collapse of the form and the end of the individual scenes, and it remains for Hárbarðr to resume the play, either immediately or after some interstitial verbal byplay (e.g., sts. 26–27 and 32–35). To the extent that each sequence or protose- quence is a formal demonstration of the contenders’ cross-purposes—Þόrr’s to conduct and Hárbarðr to subvert a traditional flyting—the parodic element may be said to inhere in the structure itself. This analysis does not account for the poem’s third irregularity, the alternation of meters; but we may reasonably suppose, in light of the above, that this is a function of the same parodic impulse—less schematic than the variation in stanza length and the prose/poetry alternation, but equally intended “til forhöjelse af den komiske virkning” [to heighten the comic effect].44
Þόrr’s intellectual inadequacy with respect to Hárbarðr (and with respect to the generic expectation) is a vein thoroughly mined by the poet. As we have suggested, Þόrr’s notion of a flyting entry is confined to doctrinaire and monochromatic boasts of giant-killing. His remaining stanzas in the flyting proper consist of simpleminded threats or accusations (27, 47, 49, 51, 53) or brief expressions of confusion (17, 21, 25, 31, 33, 41, 43). Insults appear to be beyond Þόrr’s capability. He has in fact only one, a frayed ergi [’unmanliness’] formula (“Hárbarðr inn ragi”) [you pervert], which he uses twice here (sts. 27 and 51), once in variant form in st. 49 (“hair inn hugblauði”) [cowardly man], and four times in similar form (“Þegi Þú, rǫg vættr”) [Shut up, queer] in Lokasenna. (This idée fixe of Þόrr’s is explicitly twitted in Þrymskviða 17: “Mic munu æsir / argan kalla, / ef ec bindaz læt / brúðar lini” [The Æsir might call me a fag if I let myself be dressed in bridal linen] and probably lies behind the væta ǫgur concern in Hbl 13 as well.) His language blends colloquial with slightly stilted formulations which “smaker av jotunsprog”45 and his stanzas are for the most part, and certainly in comparison with Hárbarðr’s, unimaginative.46 Given the mediocrity of his performance as a whole, it is hard suppose that the Hvat vanntu Þá meðan? that he supplies as a challenge formula was not also intended by the poet to be ludicrously conventional.
Hárbarðr, on the other hand, deploys a full range of provocations. He relies heavily on sarcasm and insults, both general and specific: st. 26 recalls Þόrr’s ignominious night in Fjalarr’s (Skrymir’s) glove: “hvárki Þú Þá Þorðir / fyr hrœzlo Þinni / hniόsa né físa, / svá at Fialarr heyrði” [you dared neither sneeze nor fart for fear that Fjalarr would hear]; st. 6 denigrates his appearance; and st. 24 makes the pointed claim that “Óðinn á iarla, / Þá er í val falla, / en Þόrr á Þræla kyn” [Óðinn gets the earls who fall in battle, but Þόrr gets the slaves]—a remark to which partisans of the socio-mythic interpretation attach special significance.47 He makes two taunts about Þόrr’s domestic life: that his mother is dead (st. 4) and that his wife Sif has a lover (st. 48). His language is equally varied, ranging from elegant irony to a style “preget av lav jargon” (in sharp contrast to Þόrr’s efforts at ceremony).48 His stanzas are marked by ornamental peculiarities (doubled lines, extra alliteration, internal rhyme) and make rich use of metaphors, proverbs, wordplay, allusions, and oblique formulations. But his chief strategy, used repeatedly throughout the poem, is the “gækkende ekko” [mocking echo] introduced in the opening exchange:49 109
| Þόrr: | Hverr er sá sveinn sveina, |
| er stendr fyr sundit handan? | |
| Hárbarðr: | Hverr er sá karl karla, |
| er kallar um váginn?50 |
Just as firing back the enemy’s own spear or arrow is a choice effrontery in actual combat, so Hárbarðr’s witty returns of Þόrr’s lines have a special insult value. His st. 28, “Hvat scyldir Þú um sund seilaz, / er sakir ro allz ǫngar?” [Why should you want to get over the sound if we have no quarrel?] is a mocking repetition of Þόrr’s puzzled question (st. 11), “Hvat scaltu of nafn hylia, / nema Þú sacar eigir?” [Why should you want to hide your name, if we have no quarrel?].51 To Þόrr’s “Ec mynda Þér Þat veita, / ef ec viðr of kœmiz” [I would help you if I could get there], Hárbarðr replies (st. 34), “Ec mynda Þér Þá trúa, / nema Þú mic í trygð véltir” [I would believe you if you hadn’t tricked me]. In st. 36 Hárbarðr asks, “Hvat vanntu meðan, Þόrr?” (the eighth repetition of the formula) and then interrupts Þόrr’s response (a description of his battle with berserk women) with the sarcastic comment “Klæki vanntu Þá, Þόrr, / er Þú á konom barðir” [Shame you won, Þόrr, in fighting with women]. But it is in the erotic stanzas that the technique is most elegantly realized. To Þόrr’s account of his victory over the sons of Svárangr (st. 29) Hárbarðr responds:
Ec var austr ос við einhveria (A: einherio) dœmðac,
léc ec við ina línhvíto oc launÞing háðac,
gladdac ina gullbiǫrto, gamni mær unði.52 (St. 30)
[I was east, chatting with some woman (A: battle maiden); I rallied with the linen-white one and waged secret meetings; I gladdened the gold-bright one—the maid enjoyed her pleasure.]
Not only is his first line a direct imitation of Þόrr’s preceeding first line (“Ec var austr / oc ána varðac”; ‘I was east, guarding the river’), his choice of words throughout mimics his coventional language of struggle and conquest (léc: cf. leika viö e-n or Hildar leikr; h áða launÞing: cf. heyja sverðÞing; gladdac: cf. gleðja Hugin or glaða ǫrno).53 This may be the Edda’s wittiest stanza.
Quips and insults form a minor genre in Norse, and the ability to improvise them—or anything else—was by all accounts a highly prized skill. This is Hárbarðr’s great advantage: he is able to adjust and react spontaneously to whatever formulations Þόrr may utter, whereas Þόrr is entirely dependent for his material on the mechanical forumulas of a tradition he has not quite mastered. On the verbal as well as the structural level, Þόrr plays off the convention, while Hárbarðr plays off Þόrr.54
Lokasenna 57–63 offers a partial but close parallel—so close, in fact, that it led an earlier generation of scholars to identify Hárbarðr with Loki.55 Into Loki’s encounter with the gods Þόrr makes an eleventh-hour entry and, taking up the established form and phrasing with characteristic literal-mindedness, offers four stanzas, of which the first helming of each is “Þegi Þú, rǫg vættr / Þér seal minn Þrúðhamarr, / Miǫllnir, mál fyrnema” [Shut up, queer, or my mighty hammer Mjǫllnir will close your mouth], and the second helming a simple threat of violence expressed in boastful terms (e.g., “hendi inni hœgri / drep ec Þic Hrungnis bana, / svá at Þér brot-nar beina hvat”; ’with my right hand I will kill you with Hrungnir’s bane and break your bones’). In contrast, Loki is intellectually nimble and manages to fit into the interstices of his opponent’s lumbering threats an ominous reminder of Þόrr’s scheduled fate at Ragnarök (st. 58), two verbally similar insults on the Skrymir’s glove incident (sts. 60 and 62), a sarcasm abbout his own intention of staying alive (62), a summary statement (sts. 64—65), and what appears to be a curse (st. 65).56 The relation Loki-Þόrr thus duplicates the relation Hárbarðr-Þόrr. Loki insults, curses, cajoles, and ironizes, whereas Þόrr only threatens and boasts. Loki’s formulations are flexible and multi-toned; Þόrr’s are rigid. Loki improvises; Þόrr relies on formulas. Þόrr is, of course, not the only loser in Lokasenna; he is preceded by fifteen speakers who have also been verbally worsted by Loki. But his performance is nonetheless uniquely stupid in the poem. Loki’s other opponents may be ineffective against him, but they are, with the exception of Byggvir, by no means without forensic talent, and one senses no major intellectual discrepancy.57 Þόrr alone, standing in final position, is ridiculously inept, and a large part of the poem’s irony rests on the fact that a specifically verbal form is finally “won” by the most inarticulate participant, if only by virtue of his looming presence. Despite its dependent status and its different outcome (there is no body of water to keep Þόrr at a safe distance), Lks 57–65 is sufficiently like Hbl for us to regard it as a short version, probably the prototype, of the same joke.58 This similarity, not to speak of the likelihood of a direct relationship, between Lks and Hbl casts some doubt on the customary analysis of the latter as a sociopolitical allegory promoting the values of the warrior élite at the comic expense of the landholding classes. Loki, Hárbarðr’s duplicate in an almost identical drama, can hardly be interpreted as a representative of the martial aristocracy, and there is no way that what is commonly cited as the key sentence of Hbl (“όðinn gets the earls who fall in battle, but Þόrr gets the slaves”) can be stretched to fit Lokasenna. To the extent that social class is implicated in Hbl, therefore, it is probably best regarded as an embellishment or secondary accretion rather than itself the shaping Tendenz of the poem.
There can be no doubt about the Hbl poet’s sophistication and esthetic control; both are amply demonstrated in the superabundance of flyting clichés, the allusions and wordplay, the outer drápa-like structure of the poem and, on the level of internal form, the periodic inclusion of entirely regular and generically conventional stanzas. (It should be noted that if Hbl is otherwise cluttered, it is through no fault of Þόrr’s; his boast stanzas are model flyting entries in all respects but imagination, and had Hárbarðr responded in like wise, Hbl would be the Codex Regius” tidiest poem.) All of this leads us to conclude that the poet could have realized the form fully if he had so chosen, and that his failure to do so is a result not of incompetence but intention—a conclusion confirmed by the patterned nature of certain of the irregularities. It is in this combination of the hyper-typical and the deliberately deviant that we detect the parodist’s method of observing certain aspects of the form with exaggerated fidelity in order to set the scene for the comic inversion of certain others.
The traditional reading of Hbl as a comic portrait of Þόrr in the context of a sociomythic confrontation leaves untouched the question of its problematic construction. It is only against its immediate Germanic generic backdrop that Hbl gets its third dimension and its formal oddities come into full comic relief. Þόrr and Hárbarðr are of less interest as individuals than as actors of appointed roles in a set piece whose normal rules were entirely familiar to an early audience—and whose breaches of the rules were, by the same token, recognizable as such. The full flavor of Þόrr’s obviously clumsy performance, in other words, lies not only in its contrast with Hárbarðr’s skilled one, but in its contrast with the generic norm, according to which articulateness, not to say eloquence, was understood to be the minimum requirement. The poet has taken a standard image of Þόrr and placed it in an equally standard but radically inappropriate context. Hárbarðr’s performance is equally inappropriate, but unlike Þόrr’s it is both deliberate and unruly—a kind of generic sabotage of Þόrr’s effort. This dialectic between opposing forces is the determining factor in their continuing interaction, and it runs like a red thread through the string of jokes that constitute the poem. What Þόrr tries to construct, Hárbarðr effectively dismantles. Þόrr wants to play by the rules but can’t, and Hárbarðr can but won’t. Hárbarðr transcends the genre, whereas Þόrr doesn’t even rise to its minimal level. Hárbarðr conducts a parody in which Þόrr unwittingly plays the role of straight man (as Liliencron noted, “Der beste humor in den Thorsmythen ist es dass ihm selbst der humor entgeht”).59 From this can be seen the key role of the genre as the poem’s shaping abstraction. As the measure of opposite and equally abnormal performances, it is tantamount to an invisible but constant, and authoritative, third presence.
From the point of view of literary history, and particularly in light of the current discussion of Norse genres, the identification of Hbl as a generic farce is of some interest. If the original audience knew what made and unmade a flyting, then “flyting” must have been well entrenched as a literary concept—not only a “felt” concept, but a defined and self-consciously manipulated one (perhaps even a named one).60 Although the existence of one such category does not necessarily guarantee the existence of others, it does suggest a denominational habit of mind which may be assumed to extend beyond the immediate case to the larger literary field.
But the real value of this interpretation is that it gives us a new angle on one of the Edda’s most recalcitrant poems. It shows how certain structural features which appear at first glance to be random mistakes are in fact deliberate and systematic distortions of the generic norms. Further, it provides a conceptual matrix for the otherwise plotless and static span of sixty stanzas of dialogue. Finally, it explains, more completely and more precisely than other interpretations, the full force of the joke.
1. Finnur Jόnsson, HárbarÞsljόÞ: En undersogelse (Copenhagen: Thieles Bogtrykkeri, 1888), p. 173. [Tr.: a confused mixture of like and unlike, of verse and prose, of the most refined observations and the most tasteless vulgarities.]
2. Finnur Jόnsson, HárbarÞsljόÞ, pp. 173 and 174–79. [Tr.: take their place beside the most elegant Eddic poems.] Cf. the reconstruction of Felix Niedner, “Das Hárbarðsljόð,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 31 (1887): 217–82 (esp. 264–72). Niedner redivided and reattributed the stanzas, reducing the number from sixty stanzas of uneven length to thirty even ones.
3. Magnus Olsen places it around 980. See his Edda- og Skaldekvad. I. Hárbarðsljόð, Avhandlinger utgitt a ν det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, 2. Hist.-Filos. Klasse, no. 1 (Oslo: H. Aschehoug, 1960), pp. 5–89 (esp. 84–86).
4. See esp. Gerd Weber, Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (Zurich: Kindler, 1970–74), s.v. Hárbarðsljόð.
5. “[Hbl] zeigt, wie vielgestaltig die altnordische Dichtkunst in ihrer Blütezeilt war und daß neben den wohlgepflegten Pflanzen der Skaldik auch manches wilde Gewächs emporgeschossen ist.” [(Hbl) shows how multiform Old Norse poetic art was in its prime and that beside the well-tended plants of skaldic verse, wild undergrowth could also spring up.] Jan de Vries, Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 2nd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1964), 1: 58.
6. The classic statement along these lines is that of R. von Liliencron, “Das Harbardslied,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 10 (1856): 180–96. See also Niedner, pp. 228–34. For a dissenting opinion see Finnur Jόnsson, Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie, 2nd ed. (Copenhagen, G.E.C. Gad, 1920–24), 1: 150.
7. I have used the term “flyting” throughout to refer to any combination of senna and mannjafnaðr. For a list of examples, together with a composite portrait, see my article “The Germanic Context of the UnferÞ Episode,” Speculum [55 (1980): 444–68]. See also Joaquín Martínez Pizarro, “Studies on the Function and Context of the Senna in Early Germanic Narrative,” Diss. Harvard, 1976; Joseph Harris, “The senna: From Description to Literary Theory,” [Michigan Germanic Studies 5 (1979): 65–74]; and Joseph Harris, “Eddic Poetry as Oral Poetry: The Evidence of Parallel Passages in the Helgi Poems for Questions of Composition and Performance,” [Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. Haraldur Bessason and Robert Glendinning (Winnipeg: Manitoba University Press, 1983), pp. 208–240]. See also Andreas Heusler, Die altgermanische Dichtung, 2nd ed. rev. (Potsdam: Athenaion, 1941), pp. 105–108; Anne Holtsmark in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk mid- delalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, s.v. senna and mannjevning; Paul Herrmann, Erläuterungen zu den ersten neun Büchern der dänischen Geschichte des Saxo Grammaticus (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1922); Bertha S. Phillpotts, The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920), pp. 156–59; and Lars Lönnroth, Den duhhla scenen: Muntlig diktning från Eddan till Abba (Stockholm: Prisma, 1977), pp. 53–80.
8. Multiplied forms (e.g., Lokasenna, Hárbarðsljόð, Ǫrvar-Odds saga) are a peculiarly Norse development, probably conditioned by the stanza.
9. The distinction is discussed by Joseph Harris in “Eddic Poetry as Oral Poetry. “
10. In “Eddie Poetry as Oral Poetry” Joseph Harris argues that the shift in meters in Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar and certain scribal indications in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I imply recognition of the semi-independent status of the flyting. It stands alone in Lokasenna and Hárbarðsljόð, and it is subordinated to a longer context in Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, the Helgi poems, and in the sagas.
11. The term comes from Bertha Phillpotts, The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama, p. 158. Martínez Pizarro delineates the evolution of this scene and its narrative context from Paul the Deacon to the late fornaldarsögur. Magnus Olsen (Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 5) cites such place names as Roparneset, Kallaðarberg, Kallaðarnes, etc.
12. Ericus Disertus vs. Grep (book 5), Ericus Disertus vs. Olmar (book 5), and Knud Lavard vs. Henrik (book 13).
13. On the quarrel of the queens see Alois Wolf, Gestaltungskerne und Gestaltungsweisen in der altgermanischen Heldendichtung (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1965), esp. 179–96; and Klaus von See, “Die Werbung um Brünhild,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 88 (1957): 1–20.
14. Viz. the landweard [coastguard] sequence (vv. 229–319 and 1890–95). On the second encounter, “no he mid hearme / of hliðes nosan / gæstas grette” [he did not greet his guests with taunts]—evidently a departure from his usual custom. For an interpretation based on analogues of this “quarrelsome coastguard” cliché see Martinez Pizarro, esp. pp. 76–78.
15. These striking Latin analogues were identified and analyzed by Joaquin Martinez Pizarro, “Studies on the Function and Context of the Senna.”
16. Magnus Olsen (Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 86) suggested “en kystbygd i Hálogaland” [a coastal settlement in Hålogaland]. Knut Bergsland preferred “et sund i en større innsjø innefor kysten” [an inlet in a large lake inland from the coast (in Lappland)] in his “Hárbarðsljόð sett fra øst,” Maal og Minne (1967): 8–40. Gösta Holm offers a critical evaluation of Bergsland in “Hárbarðsljόð och Lappland,” Maal og Minne (1969): 93–103. See also Anne Holtsmark, “Et gam- melnorsk ordsprog,” Norveg 13 (1968): 106–112.
17. G. v. Szjczepanskij connected both Hbl and Av. 25 of the Nibelungenlied with the Charon story in Der romantische Schwindel in der deutchen Mythologie and auf der Qpernbiihne. i. Das humoristische altislcindische Gedicbt von Harbard oder Charon, Fdhrmann wetland in der griecbischen Unterwelt (Elberfcld, 1885), esp. p. 5.
18. Der verge was so riche, daz im niht diencn zam, da von er Ion vil selten von iemen da genam. ouch waren sine knehte vil hohe gemuot.
[The ferryman was of such standing that it was unfitting for him to render services, so that he never accepted payment from anyone, and his underlings, too, were very haughty.]
Text is from Karl Bartsch and Helmut de Boor, Das Nibelungenlied, 20th ed. (Wiesbaden: Brockhaus, 1972). Translation is from A. T. Hatto, The Nibelungenlied (Penguin, 1976).
19. “Ouch was der selbe verge niulîch gehît … dô wold er verdienen daz Hagenen golt sô rôt” (The ferryman was newly married … he was hoping to earn Hagen’s gold that shone so red). As de Boor explains (Das Nibelungenlied, p. 247, note): “Der Ferge war jung (niulich) verheiratet und will den Ring seiner jungen Frau schenken.” [The ferryman was newly married and wants to give the ring to his young wife.] Cf. Þiðreks saga (ed. Guðni Jόnsson [Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgá-fan, 1962], ch. 365): “þá minntist hann þess, at hann hefir skömmu áðr kvángazt ok fengið fagrar konu ok ann mikit ok vill fá henni gull, hvar sem han getr” [then he recalled that he had recently married a beautiful woman whom he loved very much and to whom he wanted to bring whatever gold he got]. Sif, on the other hand, is credited with adultery: “Sif á hό heima, / hans mundo fund vilia, / þann muntu þrec drýgia, / þat er þér scyldara” (Sif has a lover at home; you would be better employed exercising your strength on him).
20. All Eddic citations are from Gustav Neckel, ed., Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, I: Text. 1914, 4th ed. rev. Hans Kuhn (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1962). [Additional translations of Eddic quotations are supplied from Carolyne Larrington, tr., The Poetic Edda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).]
21. Saxo’s Latin is a particularly rich source of such expressions. See esp. book 5 concerning Ericus Disertus.
22. A singular exception is King Fridleif’s verbal assault on a mute adversary (Saxo, book 6).
23. Both this opposition and the emphatic I/you contrast are more completely realized in the Morkinskinna version.
24. Guðni Jόnsson, ed., Fornaldar sögur Norðurlanda (Reykjavik: Íslendin-gasagnaútgáfan, 1959), vol. 2.
25. Magnússona saga, which favors the domestic achievements of Eysteinn over the glory-seeking of Sigurðr, is the exception. Snorri has evidently manipulated the tradition for his own political purposes. See Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson’s comments on this in his introduction (p. lvi) to the Íslenzk fornrit edition of Heimskringla, 3 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1951); also Lönnroth, Den dubbla scenen, pp. 69–80.
26. See especially Starkaðr’s display at the court of Ingeld (Saxo, book 6).
27. Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 19. [Tr.: following the preface comes the row of stefjabalkar stave sections), each marked by the stef (burden) with a slœmr (formal conclusion) constituting the final section.]
28. See Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 19; Felix Niedner, “Das Hárbarðsljόð,” pp. 249–64; and Finnur Jόnsson, HárbarÞsljόÞ, pp. 174–79.
29. Cf. Eokasenna 44, Helgakviða Hundingsbana I: 32, Helgakviða Hj ǫrvarðssonar 12–16, Ketils saga hœngs, chs. 3, 4, and 5, Gríms saga loðinkinna, ch. 1, HjálmÞés saga ok Ölvis, ch. 12, the encounter between Gram/Bessus and Gro (Saxo, Book 1), Ericus Disertus” various encounters (Saxo, Book 5), and Njáls saga, chs. 119–20.
30. As in the Nibelungenlied (Âventiure 25) and the Hildebrandslied. Martínez Pizarro (“Studies on the Function and Context of the Senna,” pp. 87”92) argues for an implicit gold payment in the Waltharius (vv. 430–63).
31. “Ferðu mic urn sundit, / fúði ec Þic á morgon, / meis hefi ec á baki, / verðra matrinn betri; / át ec í hvíld, / áðr ec heiman fόr, / síldr oc hafra, / saðr em ec enn Þess.” (“Ferry me over the sound and I’ll feed you in the morning; I have a basket on my back, the food couldn’t be better; I ate a leisurely meal before I left home, of herring and oatmeal, and I’m still full.”) Þόrr’s concern with food (cf. Þrymskviða) is no doubt a comic touch. As Gerd Weber (KLL) put it, “Im anschließenden Wortwechsel klingt das Kriegerethos der Scheltreden in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I an: Þόrr denkt morgens zuerst ans Essen, ein Held dagegen—ist damit gemeint— denkt nur an Ruhm.” [In the ensuing verbal exchange resonates the warrior ethos of the senna in HHI (sts. 32—46); the first thing in the morning that Þόrr thinks of is food, whereas a hero (it is implied) thinks only of fame.] For a discussion of the menu, see O. Nordsgaard, “Tors frokost,” Maal og Minne 9 (1917): 79–80; in reply, Halvdan Koht, “Síld og —bukker?” Maal og Minne 9 (1917): 163—64; in counter- reply, O. Nordsgaard, “Mere om Tors frokost,” Maal og Minne 10 (1918): 82–84.
32. F. Detter and R. Heinzel read the remark as a reference to Þόrr’s appearance: “Deinem Hauswesen fehlt die weibliche Hand, deine Mutter muss wol schon gestorben sein.” [Your household lacks a feminine touch; your mother must have died.] See their Sœmundar Edda (Leipzig: Georg Wigand, 1903), 1: 213. Magnus Olsen (Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 8) notes the parallel with Hávamál 81 (“At qveldi seal dag leyfa, / kono, er brend er” [At evening should the day be praised, the woman when she is cremated]): “Mon det er Hávamál-strofen—latent i dikterens sinn—som har trukket efter sig den videre utmaling av det triste hjem og morens dod?” [Could the line from Hávamál, latent in the poet’s mind, have shaped this further description of the sad home and the mother’s death?] But Hárbarðr has already proved his capacity for lying and there is, as Niedner pointed out (“Das Hárbarðsljόð,” p. 277), no reason to believe that this remark (or his later one on Sif’s infidelity) is true.
33. Svend Gruntvig, Scemundar Edda bins frόða, rev. ed. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1874), p. 201.
34. “Berbeinn Þú stendr, / oc hefir brautinga gervi, / Þatki, at Þú hafir brúcr Þínar.” [Barelegged you stand, dressed like a beggar, not even in real breeches (st. 6)]. Appearance insults are commonplace in the flytings; for similar “beggar” examples see Ǫrvar-Odds saga, ch. 27, sts. 2 and 5. With the “breeches” comment Hárbarðr is suggesting that Þόrr is not “utstyrt som et mannfolk skal være” [dressed as a man should be] (Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 9). Martínez Pizarro (“Studies on the Function and Context of the Senna,” pp. 36–42) has located a similar breeches insult in an early senna context in the Historia Langobardorum (5: 38) which implies some sort of sexual irregularity, possibly castration.
35. “Harm liόtan mér Þiccir í Því, / at vaða um váginn til Þín / ос væta ǫgur minn” (“It would seem odious to me to have to wade the water and get my balls [?] wet” [st. 13]). On this passage see Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, pp. 17–18, and Jöran Sahlgren, “Væta ǫgur, Arsvätan och Ballblötan,” Namn och bygd 49 (1961): 1–8.
36. Magnus Olsen comments on the metrical peculiarities of this stanza in Edda- og Skaldekvad, pp. 21 and 80–84. See also note 50 below.
37. The language of this stanza is intentionally obscure, and its meaning is disputed. The sense of the first helming is: “When these women were to be gentle with us, they were stubborn instead; when they were to be loving to us, they were refractory–—from Oskar Lundberg, “Ön Allgrön. Är Eddans Harbardsljod ett norskt kväde?” Arctos Svecica, 2 (Stockholm: H. Geber, 1944), p. 30. See also Albert Morey Sturtevant, “A Note on Hárbarðsljόð,” Scandinavian Studies 1 (1913): 157–64. On vv. 5–8, see “Tasks contrary to the laws of nature” in Stith Thompson, Motif-index of Folk Literature, FF Communications No. 108 (Helsinki, 1934).
38. Cf. Átlamâl 53: “átián, áðr fello, / efri Þeir urðo” [eighteen, before they fell, they had overcome].
39. Hárbarðr’s stanzas 24 and 40 are often characterized in the commentaries as straightforward martial boasts equivalent to Þόrr’s entries, but closer inspection shows them to be very different. St. 24 begins “Var ec á Vallandi / oc vígom fylgðag” [I was in Valland, and I waged war] but goes on to describe Óðinn’s role not as a participant but as a spectator. St. 40 (“Ec varc í her- nom …”) [I was in the army] is on first glance a battle description, but as Magnus Olsen wrote, “Vi må spørre: er Harbård nu plutselig blitt aktivt krigersk? Han har jo alt gitt en uttømmende beretning om sin virksomhet nâr han “vígum fylgði” (24), så her кап intet våre a tilføie.” [We may ask, has Hárbarðr turned into an active warrior all of a sudden? He has already detailed what effect he has when he ’wages war” (st. 24), so there should be nothing to add here.] He proposes that ’army’ here refers to hauga herr, an army of the dead (Edda- og Skaldekvad, pp. 63–67). This reading offers a better motivation for Þόrr’s otherwise mysterious response: “Þess viltu nú geta, er Þú fόrt oss όlubann (A: oliyfâ) at biόða.” [This is tantamount to saying that you want to wage war upon us (st. 41).] (Hárbarðr’s Charon-like role should be recalled in this connection.)
40. St. 14 lacks a challenge formula, but Hárbarðr’s reference to Hrungnir plays the equivalent role, eliciting a formulaic mannjafnaðr response.
41. Sts. 37 and 39 are counted as one. Hárbarðr’s single-line st. 38 is an obvious interruption, for Þόrr has not completed his boast.
42. On this see Magnus Olsen, “Deildevers,” Maal og Minne 23 (1931): 151–53.
43. As counted by Finnur Jόnsson in “HárbarÞsljόÞ.” The remaining prose lines, all Hárbarðr’s, are sts. 36, 46, and 48. St. 36 consists of an unadorned “Hvat vanntu meðan, Þόrr?” [What were you doing meanwhile, Thor?] and probably ought not be classed as prose; cf. “vitoð ér enn, еðа hvat?” [do you want to know more, or not?] in Vǫluspâ [sts. 27ff.]. See Felix Niedner, “Das Hárbarðsljόð,” pp. 245–47.
44. Svend Grundtvig’s brief suggestion (Sœmundar Edda, p. 200) that the poem’s irregularities somehow contributed to the comic effect is unique in the early commentaries, and it was emphatically rejected by Felix Niedner (“Hárbarðsljόð,” p. 240).
45. Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 18. [Tr.: smack of giant language.] See also his “Kǫgurbarn og kǫgursveinn,” Maal og Minne 32 (1940): 9-16 [repr. in Fra Norrøn Filologi (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1949), pp. 271–78]. See also Jöran Sahlgren, “Nordiska ordstudier,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 44 (1928): 258–71.
46. The two metrical analyses of Hárbarðsljόð are those of Eduard Sievers, “Die Hárbarðsljόð,” Metrische Studien 4: 1. Abhandlungen der philologischhistorischen Klasse der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Leipzig: Teubner, 1918) 35: 132–42, and Hugo Gering, “Zur Eddametrik. I. HárbarÞsljόÞ,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 50 (1926): 127–44.
47. E.g., Gerd Weber (KLL): “Der Standort des Dichters wird in solchen Sätzen klar: hier verspottet ein vom gehobenen Selbstgefühl des kampferprobten Wikings, Dichters und weltgewandten Fürstengefolgsmanns erfüllter Anhänger des Odin-Glaubens den bäuerlichen Schutzgott, dem jedes Verhältnis zum Geistigen fehlt und der dem ambivalenten Wesen Óðins nicht gewachsen ist.” [In such sentences, the poet’s position becomes clear: here the adherent of the cult of Óðinn— a highly self-confident, battle-tested Viking, poet, and worldly-wise royal retainer— mocks the patron god of the rustic, who lacks any connection with the spiritual and is untouched by the ambivalent nature of Óðinn.] Magnus Olsen has noted the possibility of wordplay in the line: “Tor må ha ventet at det skulde hete: ’en Þόrr á karla [rimende med jarla] kyn,” men han er blitt narret” (Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 33). [Thor may have been expecting (Hábarðr) to say: ‘but Þόrr has the race of churls [or freemen]’ (rhyming with earls), but he is fooled.]
48. Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 18. [Tr.: marked by low slang.]
49. Finnur Jόnsson, Litt. Hist., p. 151.
50. Magnus Olsen agrues that Hárbarðr echoes sounds as well as words and phrases. E.g., verse 2 “hermer og overdriver til fulstendig lydmaling” [mimics and exaggerates with repeated echoes] the a sound of the final handan in verse 1 (Edda- og Skaldekvad, p. 80).
51. The A reading of st. 28 makes the echo even clearer: “Hvat scaltu um sund seilaz, / er sacar его allz ǫngar?”
52. Magnus Olsen (Edda- og Skaldekvad, pp. 38–46) prefers the A reading einherio in light of the larger double entendre. Finnur Jόnsson translates einherja as “spøgefuld betegnelse for en elskerinde” [jocular term for a lover] (Lexicon Poeticum).
53. See Magnus Olsen, Edda- og Skaldekvad, pp. 38-46. Cf. also st. 45 of Helgakviða Hundingsbana 1, cited above.
54. Only toward the end of the poem does Þόrr appear to comprehend the disparity, if not the full extent of his plight. In st. 43 he despairs: “Hvar namtu Þessi / in hnœfiligo orð, / er ec heyrða aldregi / hnœfiligri?” [“Where did you get these insulting words, the most insulting I ever heard?”].
55. So Friedrich Wilhelm Bergmann, Das Graubartslied (Hárbarðsljόð): Lokis Spottreden auf Thor (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1872); and Viktor Rydberg, Undersökningar i germansk mytologi, 1 (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1886). The counter- insurgence was led by Fredrik Sander, Harbardssângen jämte grundtexten till Völuspá. Mythologiska undersökningar med några Eddaillustrationer (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1891); Felix Niedner, “Hárbarðsljόð”; and Finnur Jόnsson, “HárbarÞsljόÞ.”
56. “Eiga Þín ǫll, / er hér inni er, / leiki yfir logi, / oc brenni Þér á baki?” (st. 65).
57. Byggvir’s stanzas consist of a boast out of keeping with his social status (st. 45) and an excessive threat (st. 43), making his performance not unlike Þόrr’s.
58. The relationship has been examined most closely by Magnus Olsen, Eddaog Skaldekvad, passim.
59. Liliencron, “Das Harbardslied,” p. 195. [Tr.: The best joke in this Thor myth is that Thor himself doesn’t get the joke.]
60. Joseph Harris (“The senna”) argues that the existence of the term senna implies native recognition of a literary category. Cf. my “Germanic Context of the UnferÞ Episode,” [444–7].