Fimbulvetr between Ecocriticism and Text Criticism

Abstract

Considering the Vǫluspá, related eddic and skaldic witnesses, and their adaptation in Snorri’s rhetorical treatise (under the pervasive influence of late antique erudition and Christian lore on their written fixation), this contribution aims to assess the convenience of adopting ecocriticism, a discipline of sociological matrix, to the analysis of texts from the Old-Icelandic manuscript tradition and Swedish runology. Advanced techniques of scientific investigation (like volcanology and dendrochronology) and new methodologies and theoretical frameworks (like geosemiotics) appear capable of achieving fascinating results, claimed to be relevant to Old-Icelandic mythography and the reconstruction of underlying beliefs in Scandinavian pre-Christian oral culture. Under the impact of the current climatic emergency, these have been applied with the re-reading of the Rök Stone, where, in the runic inscription, a series of riddles referring to the death of the sun is deemed to be derived from the apocalyptic fears aroused by the memory of a climatic catastrophe, the fimbulvetr (Great Winter). The volcanic winter of 536 has been linked to the poetic invention of the fimbulvetr, the myth of which is actually documented in Iceland from the half of the 13th c. onwards, with a simple reference in the Vafþrúðnismál and a short report in the Gylfaginning, where the fimbulvetr is the triggering event of the Ragnarök. The paper will reassess the development and variability of the Great Winter narrative in the written sources and the soundness of the ecocritical approach to its philological interpretation.