! Assembly of The Elder Troth - Article - Reaves - Voluspa 9-10: Creation of the Dwarves !

What is The AET?

Contacts Database

The Assembly of The Elder Troth would like to welcome you to our website. Please click on the links to the left to enter the relevant area of our site.

Heil and welcome to the Articles section of the Assembly of The Elder Troth website. Here you can find items written by many wide and varied folk. The idea is to provide a venue for discussion, debate and education amongst the folk by giving people an individual flavour to the information provided. Every article here is the work of its' author. The Assembly of The Elder Troth DOES NOT endorse the words or anything that is found herein as being official Assembly of The Elder Troth policy, it is purely the work of the author as provided in each case, and Copyright rests with the Author, reproduction is prohibited without the authors permission.

Voluspa 9-10: Creation of the Dwarves - by William Reaves

Part 1: Thor and The Elves

Hello,

I am going to send an email I recently received regarding Voluspa 9-10, and
the dwarf-list from a friend of mine named Eysteinn Bjornsson. I am sending
it to this forum for two reasons. One, because it is an excellent
discussion of the topic and which I am sure will be of interest to many of
you, and secondly because I am preparing a posting on The MEad Myth and
this letter touches on a point I wish to discuss there. Rather than discuss
this topic in an already too lengthy post, I thought it best to forward
this message first. I have not asked Eysteinn permission, but as it is an
explantion and translation of information available on his website, I do
not believe he will mind. The below words are his own, not mine. But please
make any comments you would like to the list regarding it, as it is a topic
worthy of discussion and a "new" finding in the field. I have added a
title.

Regards, William Reaves

************************************

Regarding the Creation of the Dwarves

I was truly shocked the other day, when I finally got around to
taking a good look at the recently published Volume One of the
History of Icelandic Literature (Mal & Menning, 1992). In his
treatment of Völuspá, the eminent scholar Vésteinn Ólason states
the following about stanzas 9 - 10 of this poem:

The next major act was the creation of Man, and for this the Dwarves
were chosen, being the most skilled in handicraft. The Dwarves seem
to have grown from the earth, and it is therefore quite likely that
they may be brothers to the Giants. They made human shapes from earthly
matter, among them two shapes from wood, Askur and Embla, which are
then found by Óðinn, Hænir and Lóðurr, and endowed with life and divine
shapeliness. Snorri relates this episode in a different way, and many
scholars prefer to interpret Völuspá in a way conforming more to his
account, but recently a scholar has shown us very convincing reasons
for accepting a new interpretaion of the text."

The reason why this was quite a shock to me is that I figured the
same thing out 15 years ago, but have hardly dared to mention it to
anybody, at least not as an amateur to an academic. At that time
such an interpretation was, of course, utterly iconoclastic, because
it would have implied that Sigurður Nordal, Ólafur Briem, et al. were
wrong (as witnessed by their editions of Völuspá). Therefore it really
came as a warm breeze on a winter night to see one of our most respected
Eddic scholars state such a theory more or less as a proven fact.

I will now try to present the basis of this new interpretation of
Völuspá 9 - 10.

The two stanzas in question can be found in 3 major sources: Konungsbók
(R),
Hauksbók (H), and Snorra-Edda (S). Snorra-Edda exists in 4 major
manuscripts:
Konungsbók, Trektarbók, Ormsbók, and Uppsalabók. Many minor variants may be
found in all of these, but I will here concentrate only on those which are
relevant to the matter in hand. Below I have set out the two stanzas, side
by side, using modern spelling (since this is most easily understood by
all).
The crux of the matter is lines 5-6 in stanza 9. (It is tempting to treat
lines
7-8 here as well, but this would make the treatment far too long for the
present
purpose.) Line 10:7 is important as well.

Konungsbók: Hauksbók: Snorra-Edda:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
9:1 Þá gengu regin öll Þá gengu regin öll Þá gengu regin öll
9:2 á rökstóla, á rökstóla, á rökstóla,
9:3 ginnheilög goð, ginnheilög goð, ginnheilög goð,
9:4 og um það gættust, og um það gættust og um það gættust,
9:5 HVER SKYLDI DVERGA HVERJIR SKYLDU DVERGA AÐ SKYLDI DVERGA
9:6 DRÓTTIN SKEPJA DRÓTTIR SKEPJA DRÓTT OF SKEPJA
9:7 úr Brimis blóði úr Brimis blóði úr Brimis blóði
9:8 og Bláins leggjum. og Bláins leggjum. og Bláins leggjum.

10:1 Þar Mótsognir Þar var Móðsognir "Móðsognir var
10:2 mæztur um orðinn mæztur of orðinn æðstur, og annar
10:3 dverga allra, dverga allra, Durinn" (given in
10:4 en Durinn annar; en Durinn annar; prose).
10:5 þeir mannlíkun Þeir mannlíkan Þar mannlíkun
10:6 mörg um gerðu, mörg of gerðu mörg of gerðust,
10:7 DVERGAR ÚR JÖRÐU, DVERGA Í JÖRÐU, DVERGAR Í JÖRÐU,
10:8 sem Durinn sagði. sem Durinn sagði. sem Durinn sagði.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jón Helgason, Sigurður Nordal, and Ólafur Briem all agree that 9:5-6
should read thus:

hver skyldi dverga
dróttir skepja

It is a fact that none of the mss. actually have the text in this form,
but I don't think any repectable scholar would insist on "dróttin" here.
Even Snorri supports this slight emendation of (R), which is also supported
by (H) anyway. The difference between "hver" (R) and "hverjir" (H) is
basically irrelevant, although (H) seems more natural in the light of
what follows.

I don't have an English translation handy, but I'm fairly certain that
all of them agree, more or less, as follows:

"Then all the gods went into assembly, and decided who should create the
race of Dwarves from earth. Mótsognir was the mightiest of all Dwarves, and
Durinn
second to him. They, dwarves, created many man-like shapes from earth,
instructed by Durinn."

There are serious reasons to doubt such an interpretation.

First, if this is all about dreating Dwarves, how can the Dwarves Mótsognir
and Durinn be the creators? They are Dwarves themselves! Did they create
themselves?

Second, the word "dróttir" is exclusively used of MEN. It is never applied
to gods, elves, dwarves or any supernatural being.

To make a long tale short, the most natural way to interpret here is:

Who of the Dwarves (hver Dverga) should create MANKIND (dróttir). It is
not the origin of Dwarves which is being described her, but the origin
of MAN, whom the Dwarves create!

If any more proof is needed, let's look at stanza 10: "Mótsognir was the
mightiest of all Dwarves, Durinn second". The Dwarves obviously already
exist ("all Dwarves"), since M. and D can be described as their leaders.
And what do they do? "They, the dwarves, created many human shapes from
earth, as Durinn instructed." "Manlíkun" means "man-likenesses, human
shapes".

No fluent reader of the Icelandic language needs more to see the truth of
this
(as in fact I've tested extensively). You may ask: If this is so obvious,
why have
generations accepted the earlier interpretation? This is easy to answer:
From
an early age, we are presented with the Eddic poems in school. We are
basically
taught that there is no possibility of doubt in the accepted
interpretations.
The early scholars' words are presented to us as holy scripture. Especially
Snorri is sacrosanct. Doubting *him* amounts to a deadly sin. Only recently
are
the academics beginning to realize that Snorri may, indeed, have been wrong
sometimes. (Rydberg saw this a century ago, but we've all seen what
happened
to *his* theories. He was far ahead of his times - as a matter of fact
modern
scholars are slowly starting to accept some of his theories, but most of
them
assume he's safely dead and buried, and therefore present them as their
own.
Sad, but true.)

And now we can see why Snorri emended like he does, creating new
variations to fit his mistaken ideas. First he gets rid of the awkward
"hver":

að skyldi dverga
drótt of skepja

"that the race of dwarves should be created".

Then he brazenly cuts 10:1-4 out of the poem, and incorporates it into
his prose in a way that indicates that M. and D. only existed AFTER the
Dwarves were created. Finally he shamelessly rewrites 10:5-8. He couldn't
easily delete line 8, though, which really reveals the absurdity of it
all:

þar manlíkun
mörg of gerðust
dvergar í jörðu
sem Durinn sagði

"There many human-likenesses took shape in the earth, as Durinn said".

Here the Dwarves are automatically created, as he states "like worms
in dead flesh". Please! And I wonder how he would account for Durinn
here, if only we could ask him.

I think I've made the point carefully enough, so let's continue:

After the two stanzas discussed above, the Dvergatal (Dwarf Rigmarole)
follows. Not many modern scholars can be found which still stick to
the ridiculous idea that this belongs here. The author of Völuspá was
extremely economical in his style, and indeed he would have to be so in
order to squeeze the complete history of the world into such a short
space. Why on earth would he have chosen to spend 10% of the poem on
a meaningless list of Dwarves, which have nothing to do with his swift,
but sure, recounting of the epic of the world, reaching from Creation to
Ragnarök? He was obviously depending on his listeners' inside knowledge:
his art isn't shown by the facts he presents, but in HOW he presents
them. Surely the audience would have thrown eggs at him, as soon as he
started chanting the Dvergatal?

If we accept (and how could we not?) the new reading of Völuspá 9 - 10,
the absurdity of the Dvergatal becomes even more obvious.

This misinterpretation goes back centuries. Even Snorri was guilty of
it. At some point a scribe, thinking that the subject here was the
creation of Dwarves, must have thought it a good idea to insert here
a nice list of Dwarves he had handy. I can easily enter his mind, and
see exactly why he thought it was a good idea. It seemed to him to
belong there, and there it would stay. Now he could scrape the bloody
Dwarf List off the original, and re-use the precious skin!

But the proof that the Dvergatal is an interpolation is really this:

If we delete it, stanza 17 follows immediately upon stanza 10. Stanza
17 has long caused problems, first and foremost because it begins with
"unz", meaning "until", which has no obvious connection with stanza 16.
Scholars have thus presumed that something is missing from the poem. A
stanza can not easily start with "unz" like this.

But if we accept the new interpretation of 9 - 10, and throw away the
Dvergatal, all is explained!

In Völuspá 17 - 18 we learn how Óðinn, Hænir and Lóðurr find the lifeless
bodies of Askur and Embla, and endow them with spiritual gifts, which turn
them into living, radiant human beings. The connection here should be
obvious:

The Dwarves create the material bodies of Men (from earth). These bodies
are lifeless shapes, *UNTIL* Óðinn and his brothers find them and give them
the gifts of the gods: Spirit, Mind, Warmth, Movement, etc.

Those who want to be sure that the above is really based on the research
of academics, should read Tryggvi Gíslason's ground-breaking article,
"hverr
skyldi dverga dróttir skepja" (Festskrift til Ludvig Holm-Olsen, 1984), and
for additional support Gro Steinsland's article, "Antropogonimyten i
Völuspá"
(Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi, 1983).

Short synopsis: Völuspá 9-10 has long been misinterpreted as describing the
creation of Dwarves. Recently it has been convincingly shown that the two
stanzas describe the creation, by Dwarves, of the material bodies of Men.
This interpretation also indicates that the Dvergatal is an interpolation,
and that stanza 17 should be seen as a direct continuation of stanza 10.

Eysteinn Bjornsson

HOME | Articles Home | Top Of Page

Page maintained by Schmitt Services

Last Update: Monday, June 30, 2003