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26
Phillpotts: Surt.
stanzas dating from about the middle of the 13th Century.
It is supposed to be sung from the bottom of a cave by an
unseen agent, the listeners being two benighted travellers.
The poem is very obscure and its text is corrupt. But it is
clearly a description of volcanic disturbance considered as
the act of a superhuman being, and it supplies an
interes-ting commentary on Ysp. Thus we have: taka bjørg at falla
’precipitous rocks begin to fair corresponding to Ysp. grjótbjprg
gnata. Some more expressions are: hrytr .. eldrinn kámi,
’the sooty fire is flung about’; åma eimyrju lætr upp slcjótlega
hrjóta ’he ilings up sooty embers suddenly’; and: Undr lita
par ytar enn, er jgklar brenna.
Then comes a verse:
"Spretta kárair klettar "Black crags barst apart,
knýr víátis-bpl hlíðir, The bane of wood (fire) oppresses
anrr tekr upp at færast the monntain slopes,
nndarlegr úr gran du .. gravel begins to be east np
himinn rifnar þá." in a wondrous way out of the
ground,
heaven is riven then".
The expressions víðis-bgl and himinn rifnar are the exact
parallels of Ysp. sviga læve and himinn klofnar. The
my-sterious voice then concludes with the words: ek ferr.. nt&r
til Surts ins svarta, sveit, i eldinn heita. T fare .. down to
Surt the black, O people, into the hot fire’. This poem may
be said to set the seal of confirmation on the view of the
volcanic nature of Surt.
But if we reinstate Surt in his original position as a
volcano-giant, we are necessarily led to enquire where the
Scandinavian race gained such an intimate acquaintance with
volcanoes.
There can only be one ans wer: in Iceland. The
infer-ence must be that the Y9IU8P9’ is of Icelandic origin, an
inference which gains strong confirmation from the mention
of another specially Icelandic characteristic in the same poem:
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