Artisanal Revenge in Völundarkviða: Völundr’s Creations in the Spatial Relations of the Poem

Abstract

In this article I argue for the significance of Volundr’s creations as social commentary and social corrective, particularly in relation to the two key spaces and communities in Volundarkviða.1 this poem has received ample scholarly attention, as Armann Jakobsson’s use of litotes emphasizes: “Few Eddic poems have suffered less from scholarly neglect.”2 Little of the scholarship on Volundarkviða, however, examines the emphasis in the poem on both artisanal creation and spatial relations. three categories of scholarship concern this article: first, studies of the language (especially the hapax legomena and descriptions of artifacts), metrics, and compositional contexts of the poem; second, studies of the poem alongside other written and archaeological evidence about smiths in medieval Germanic settings; third, abstract and comparative studies of Volundr, often in relation to archetypal figures (smiths, shamans, dwarves) in the Germanic tradition and beyond. For too long Volundr has been scrutinized for creating artifacts described only by hapax legomena while, in other contexts, he has been transported into the company of central Siberian tribal idioms.3 Why not study Volundr and his creations within the spaces described in the poem?4 Volundarkviða is a poem of details, particularly in terms of spatial