Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/127

Rh and commentary of some sixty pages. Containing no new results, it summarises the main Continental authorities in a handy enough way. Misled by the hypothesis that Iceland was the home of the author of this comic poem, Dr. Hirschfeld indulges in an extraordinary theory that Laufey is Iceland, that the Giant’s glove is the fiord-cut north-west promontory of the same land, and that the sun shining through the steam-pillars of the boiling springs is the foundation of a myth in the poem. This fancy, ingenious as it is, may at once be set aside as contrary to everything we know of the origin and development of these Eddie lays. The whole standpoint of the mythologic treatment is somewhat feeble and imperfect. The identification of Lóþurr-Vrtra is noticed. The poem is dated too late, probably owing to the preconception of its Icelandic origin. The corruptions in the text are got round in the old fashion, rather than obelized; though this is perhaps necessary in a popular work, where the sense is more important than the letter, but verses which are purely immetrical should surely be so marked thus in Stanza 38. I should either obelize the third line, or read according to a conjecture of Vigfússon’s—“Ulfge hefr oc vel es í vidjomscal.” The translation, again, of the fourth line is also far too loose; whatever Ragna-röc may mean (and I take it to mean nothing else than the Doom of the gods) it cannot be translated “Welten-brand”. With the rejection of the lines superfluous in the metre one would cordially agree; they are in one case mere reciters’ repetition or substitutions, but as they may be in one or two cases witnesses to the early existence of parallel texts they should be noticed. The anthropological aspects of the poem are left untouched. Nor are the ancient representations of Loke, which are of no small interest, made use of. The absence of an index is inexcusable, and a short note on the most helpful books consulted, or to consult, would help the general reader who was attracted to the subject, and cost little trouble to Dr. Hirschfeld. It would be easy to criticise this book more minutely, but the main