Review of The Bearded Bride: A Critical Edition of ‘Þrymlur’, ed. by Lee Colwill and Haukur Þorgeirsson. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2020. xli + 58 pp. ISBN 9780903521987.

Issue: Leeds Medieval Studies, 3 (2023)
Date: Thursday 13 June 2024

Annika Christensen

ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9143-2746
ISSN: Print 2754-4575
ISSN: Online 2754-4583
DOI: 10.57686/256204/33

Þrymlur is an Icelandic rímur cycle that consists of three rímur totalling 79 stanzas describing the theft of Þórr’s hammer and his efforts to retrieve it. This is a myth that is also found in the Eddic poem Þrymskviða and in a ballad that exists in different versions across Scandinavia and the Faroe Islands (known in Norwegian as Torsvisen). The Bearded Bride: A Critical Edition of ‘Þrymlur’comprises an edition of the Icelandic rímur based on the earliest, sixteenth-century manuscript (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, AM 604 g 4to);¹ the first published English translation of the poem along with detailed editorial notes following most stanzas (pages 1–32); and a critical exploration of its literary and social significance. Since it is usually the Eddic poems that draw attention from scholars, and these continue to attract translations, it is refreshing to see other areas of medieval Nordic poetry being given such meticulous attention. The Bearded Bride acknowledges the influence of the Eddic tradition but also draws together motifs and parallels from across the globe and situates Þrymlur within this panoply of influences and storytelling. The book is valuable as an resource for further scholarly study of later medieval Icelandic culture.

The substantial introduction to the book offers a thorough examination of Þrymlur and its historical and literary context. It includes a brief, but detailed, introduction to the rímur genre, which is informative to readers unfamiliar with the genre and situates the poem in relation to Icelandic poetry more generally. While drawing on previous research on Þrymlur, the introduction also offers new insights. Colwill and Þorgeirsson draw, for example, on Jón Helgason’s observations that the composition and occasional omissions show the poem’s oral preservation and transmission.² This is also evident in the poetic language, which Colwill and Þorgeirsson describe as being overall ‘relatively straightforward and typical of early rímur’ but nevertheless presents occasional confusion which is dealt with in the editorial notes. For example, in stanza 1.20, there is a detailed discussion of the translation of the phrase ‘logu sem geima’ (Colwill and Þorgeirsson translate this to ‘[over] land as sea’) and the way that the original manuscript showcases a mixture of formulaic ways to phrase ‘land and sea’ (p. 8).

The introduction also includes a discussion of the different motifs and parallels drawn between Þrymlur and other folk-tale motifs and myths around the world. Although going into too much detail would send this review into a long (but undoubtedly interesting) rabbit hole, I will highlight a particular observation Colwill and Þorgeirsson make about Þrymlur in relation to the Eddic poem Þrymskviðja and the Scandinavian ballad with the same story. They argue that Þrymskviða ‘assum[es] its audience’s knowledge of the characters, [and thus] sees no need to educate that audience’, whilst the ballads on the other hand ‘remove events from the mythological sphere entirely […] [T]he audience do not need to be informed of any background’ (p. xxxix). Colwill and Þorgeirsson argue that it is in the middle of ‘these two extremes’ that Þrymlur is situated (p. xxxix):

Þrymlur seems designed to convey information as well as to entertain, and therefore occupies a unique position amongst the extant poetry concerned with the theft of Þórrs hammer. […] [T]he mythological world is not inhabited to such a degree as to make explanation unnecessary, but nor is it abandoned. The rímur poet seems to target an audience on the edge of forgetting; by including the lists of giant names alongside colorful scenes of the giants’ (lack of) table manners, the poet both entertains the audience and shores up collective memory of the mythological world.

Þrymlur is therefore an important part of a wider exploration of poetic compositions and enduring motifs that poets reworked into their materials in the post-Conversion period, and shows the variety of interpretations poets made from an existing narrative.

With The Bearded Bride, Colwill and Þorgeirsson present, as well as a critical edition of the cycle, the first English translation of Þrymlur. This is an undertaking that has been done with care and that draws on the extensive work of earlier researchers. Although the review of previous editions does not take up much space in the introduction, knowledge of previous editions is clear through the translation and normalisation process evident in the notes accompanying the Þrymlur text. Colwill and Þorgeirsson clearly state their approach to the translation at the end of the introduction, but I want to draw attention to the fact that, in addition to a translation and glossary, many of the stanzas are accompanied by detailed commentary ‘which aim to explain our emendations’ and to ‘clarify (or at least point out) points of ambiguity in the text’, as well as references to other relevant material. Colwill and Þorgeirsson take the reader through their process of translating and, in addition, the processes undertaken by other previous attempts at normalising the original manuscript text.

By presenting the first published English translation of Þrymlur, Colwill and Þorgeirsson have created a fundamental text that invites further studies, explorations, and translations. This edition attempts (and succeeds) to reach two goals: to provide an accurate translation of the source material and to situate the text matter within a wider context of ‘poetic compositions’ (p. v). The book is an extensive exploration of Þrymlur, which is both accessible to a layperson as well as a valuable resource for academic exploration.

Annika Christensen (University of Leeds)

1 The manuscript is available in digital facsimile at <https://handrit.is/manuscript/view/is/AM04-0604g>.

2 Jón Helgason, ‘Notes on Þrymlur’, Opuscula, 5 (1975), 241–49.