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 schrieb:
>
>
> [Roberto Calvo Macias] Re-reading siebzig verweth I and strahlungen III
> I have founded a mention about Stahlgewitter. EJ take this expression from a
> scheldt (sic) poet called Egil.
> Blonduos, august 3 1968
>
>
> best regards
> roberto
>
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