RE: RE: Where does EJ say he found Stahlgewitter in Edda?

[Roberto Calvo Macias <rcalvom@ctv.es>]

-----Mensaje original-----
De:	Rebing 
Enviado el:	domingo 1 de noviembre de 1998 9:55
Para:	ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Asunto:	Re: RE: Where does EJ say he found Stahlgewitter in Edda?

Roberto,as to the origin of "Stahlgewitter": 
Your hint it might come from a skald called Egil made me look through DIE GESCHICHTE VOM 
SKALDEN EGIL but to no avail. If EJ in fact found the word in the German translation of the 
Eddas (there are two of them, the poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson's prose Edda) or of one 
of the Icelandic sagas it is probably not just a word in the text but a kenning. Webster's 
definition of kenning: "A metaphorical compound word or phrase used especially in Old 
English and Old Norse poetry. ('Germanic verse... laid stress upon the trope known as 
kenning: the ocean is the"whale's bath", the "foaming fields", the "sea street"'...) In fact 
there are quite a few kennings, all meaning "fight" or "battle", similar to "Stahlgewitter" 
in the poetic stanzas occasionally inserted in those great Icelandic stories called sagas. I 
have found "storm of arrows", "storm of spears", "storm of arms", "rain from the clouds of 
battle". The saga of Egil contains more than fifty such interspersed stanzas, there is even 
"tempest (Unwetter) of weapons" and "storm of spears", but no Stahlgewitter, thunderstorm of 
steel (the translation "Storms of Steel" of the book's title is not quite exact). 

Instead of tackling the daunting task of searching all German translations of Nordic 
literature prior to 1920, when EJ chose his title, I turned to a dictionary of kennings. And 
indeed there is listed one single occurrence of "stala thrymr" which means exactly 
"thunderstorm of steel". It is supposed to be found in a poem by Thorkell Gislasson about 
whom hardly anything is known. So far I have failed to locate his poem. 

I am presumptuous enough to believe that if I have such problems finding the word in a 
university library EJ never found it but invented it, inspired by similar kennings he 
encountered while reading the Thule edition of the Edda and the sagas which was in the 
course of being published while he wrote his first book. It is possible that the entire set 
of 24 volumes was published before the end of WWI. An ad of Eugen Diederichs Verlag in Jena 
in my copy of DIE GESCHICHTE VOM SKALDEN EGIL reads: "Die ersten 13 Bände liegen 1915 
vollständig vor. Bei einem Abonnement auf wenigstens 10 Bände ist der Preis um zirka 10 bis 
15% ermäßigt...Die weiteren Bände werden 1916 in Angriff genommen. Die Schnelligkeit des 
Erscheinens hängt vom Wachsen des Interesses an der germanischen Vorzeit ab." EJ, the avid 
book collector, must have been tempted by this offer. His interest in Germanic prehistory 
and his knowledge probably of both Eddas is documented in the texts Bertil Haggman has just 
posted. 

So at this point of this perplexing quest I challenge all who love like me such occasional 
games of nit-picking to prove me wrong: I believe that EJ did not find the word 
"Stahlgewitter" but invented it well in the spirit of the Edda and the sagas.
 
Günter Rebing

[Roberto Calvo Macias]  Dear GR, once more I must agree with you. Thought, my perspective
is a bit different. I think he didn´t invented it. His memory translate the situation to the
present: instead of tempest of weapons he remembered "tempest of steel".It seems that 
he feel conviced that he read it on the Eddas. In other words: "aletheia"
Thats my bet.

best regards
roberto

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