Notes on Vsp. 17–18

Abstract

This article is part of a series of critical assessments of the ruling scholarly view of Vǫluspá as a poem with roots in, and propelled by a pagan worldview. The present contribution investigates the background of the imagery of strophes 17–18 dealing with the animation of men by the supernatural triad Óðinn, Hœnir and Lóðurr, and the referential load which this background can be brought to bear on our understanding of the poem at large. It is argued that, rather than representing any pagan conception, the picture of the faculties distributed in Vsp. 17–18 draws on medieval notions concerning the influence of the planets on men, which folly, Byrhtferth of Ramsey says, had currency among the pagan ancestors. In the poem, it is argued further, Hœnir and Lóðurr designate the Morning Star, and Saturn, presented in the poem as the opposite forces of good and bad, whose gifts equips mankind with the power of discernment of right and wrong. Before, man was ørlǫglauss ‘without fate’, now he becomes accountable for his deeds, which explains why the poet in the following strophe confronts us with the picture of the tree (Vsp. 19), introduced already in Vsp. 2 as mjǫtviðr ‘measure-tree’, calling to mind the Scriptural lignum scientiae mali et boni, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. The explanation, of an intrinsic opposition of good and evil, allows us to read the enigmatic words þá kná Hœnir hlutvið kiósa (Vsp. 63) as ‘now only Hœnir [the good planet] destines/chooses the hlutvið ‘fates [of men]’, evil influences being absent from the newly created world of bliss.