ABSTRACT
The author of Laxdœla saga praises Húsdrápa but leaves no quotations. Thirteen verses survive in Snorri’s Skáldskaparmál ‘Poetics’, but these are probably a fraction of Húsdrápa as it was. As Laxdœla saga claims, Úlfr composed on ‘all’ the carvings of the hall, and the hall was massive. As to the order of events within Húsdrápa, Úlfr’s verses have since been put in sequence so as to present three stories, all of them myths of Norse gods. Húsdrápa, stanza ‘2’, tells of a duel between Heimdallr and Loki over Freyja’s necklace, the Brísingamen ‘necklace of the Brísingar’. This duel appears to start with the two gods changing shape into seals, Heimdallr a little faster, in order to catch the necklace which is sinking into the depths. The poet seems to use this dynamic scene to express ideas such as the sun sinking into the ocean west of Iceland. Stanzas ‘3 – 6’, two of which are sometimes joined, relate Þórr’s fi shing-trip with the giant Hymir which ends in a confrontation with the World Serpent. In this version, Þórr destroys the monster as if it were a distant northern counterpart of Apollo with the Python. Stanzas ‘7 – 11’ tell of the procession of Freyr, Heimdallr and Óðinn together with ravens and valkyries to Baldr’s funeral pyre and the launching of his funeral ship. A half-stanza survives, which may as well cap these sequences, in which the poet appears to sum up (part of) his work as something completed (stanza ‘12’). This sequence of episodes could easily be changed. Baldr’s death triggers the end of the world in Snorri’s Gylfaginning, as it appears to do in VLluspá, as well as in Lokasenna, stanza 28; but it also falls long before the action in Skírnismál, in stanzas 21 – 2, and Vafþrúðnismál, stanza 54. Below Úlfr’s stanzas and mainly half-stanzas are put mostly in the time-honoured order.
