Where did the poem come into being?
In several of the verses we find the action occurring what seems
to be characteristic Norwegian nature and culture. One of the foremost Haavamaal
experts, Ludvig Holm-Olsen, points out that
"Here, but not on Iceland, the Heron flies (13), the young pines and oak
grow (50,137), the wolf hunts (50,58), the reindeer run in the mountain (90),
monuments of stone crowd the road (72), the kings ruled (15, 86, 114, 146) and
here it was customary to burn corpses (71, 81) a custom that was abolished
with the arrival of Christianity and a custom was not common in Iceland.... We
can therefore be fairly certain that large parts of Haavamaal were Norwegian
poetry that the Icelanders have taken care of."
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