Vísur og Dísir Víga-Glúms

Abstract

This article deals with the few stanzas preserved and assigned to the hero Glúmr Eyjólfsson, Víga-Glúmr. Most of the stanzas are preserved as a part of the saga of Glúmr (Víga-Glúms saga or Glúma), but besides that, three half-strophes are among Snorri Sturluson’s examples in his Edda. Some of the stanzas were e. g. by Gabriel Turville-Petre found to be “Undoubtedly […] often corrupt, and […] now to a large extent incomprehensible.” The present author finds this statement to be an exaggeration, and comes to the conclusion that almost all of the stanzas can be explained without emendations in the text of Möðruvallabók. The author finds especially interesting the stanzas describing supernatural or even divine women. There Glúmr seems to make very little distinction between dísir, ásynjur, fylgjur and even valkyrjur. They are in all cases very tall and in most cases very cruel or at least threatening. The parallel with the weavers in Darraðarljóð is very close. Special interest is here shown in a stanza that since the days of Konráð Gíslason (more exactly the year 1879) has been interpreted with his emendation, correcting the unison text of six mediaeval manuscripts. Thus the scholars have mislead those who else could have used Glúmr’s text as help when analysing Snorri’s Aristotelian and hierachical description in Edda of the divine females. With support from Folke Ström’s theories, the author finds it most likely that those females in the eyes of the viking Glúmr all were more or less the same fearful representatives for fate. One might even have to face them in battle.