Tvö Skrif um Kötludraum

Two essays about 'Kötludraumur'

Abstract

The first part of the article presents an edition of ‘Ljúflingur’, a poem by Benedikt Magnússon Bech (1674–1719), county sheriff in Skagafjörður. The edited text derives from the holograph version in Lbs 2676 4to. Benedikt enrolled at the University of Copenhagen in 1694, and his reputation as a young scholar led to speculation that he would become secretary to the antiquarian scholar Þormóður Torfason. Four years after his death a volume of his hymns was published, and over the next hundred years this collection was reprinted on twelve occasions. Lbs 2676 4to is a sizeable manuscript known as Lystiháfur, and a number of its items have already been printed, though not its text of ‘Kötludraumur’, the poem which immediately precedes ‘Ljúflingur’ in the manuscript. Benedikt’s poem was composed as a response to the huldufólk beliefs that find expression in ‘Kötludraumur’, and for which he had little sympathy. ‘Ljúflingur’ is the earliest known source for the custom of inviting elves into homesteads on New Year’s Eve. The poem is extant in 19 manuscripts, which are discussed briefly in the article. It seems to have circulated in manuscript form rather than in oral tradition. The second part of the article discusses Gísli Sigurðsson’s article ‘Kötludraumur. Flökkuminni eða þjóðfélagsumræða?’, published in Gripla IX (1995), 189–217. An edition of the poem had been scheduled for inclusion in the third volume of Íslenzk miðaldakvæði, a pre-Reformation verse project which Jón Helgason initiated in 1936 but which was never completed. Of the 80 or so manuscripts of ‘Kötludraumur’, Gísli makes use of just 12 of Jón’s transcripts, and only some of these derive from the oldest manuscripts of the poem. The poem survives in two main versions, A (the shorter) and B (the younger). The oldest sources for the poem occur in Jón lærði Guðmundsson’s Grænlands annál (1623), and Jón repeats this material in another work published in 1641. Jón refers to the A-version, as do all the oldest sources about the poem. Jón Helgason believed that ‘Kötludraumur’ pre-dated the Reformation, and Gísli suggests that this view may derive from Jón lærði. However, Jón Helgason’s dating was based on linguistic evidence. The poem tells of a love-affair between Katla, a married woman, and an elf, with the union leading to the birth of a son. The present article questions Gísli’s suggestion that the poem’s popularity may be associated with an important 1564 law (Stóridómur) concerning incest, adultery and fornication. It should be noted that extra-marital affairs involving married women were the least common (5%) of all breaches of this legislation and, of course, the easiest to conceal. Moreover, the story is set in the long-distant past.