Erratum

Page 199 of Margaret Clunies Ross and Kari Ellen Gade's article, "Cosmology and Skaldic Poetry," in JEGP 111.2 (April 2012) contains an error in the first paragraph. Part of a line was inadvertently omitted from the sentence beginning "This interest is evident . . . ." The paragraph (with the missing text in bold) and footnotes have been reproduced in full below. The journal regrets any misunderstanding resulting from this error.

It is well known that medieval Norwegians and Icelanders were interested in cosmology and in the movements of the heavenly bodies, including the sun, moon, planets, and stars. This interest is evident both from traditional sources, as presented in eddic poems such as Vǫluspá 5-6 and Vafþrúðnismál 22-25 and the skaldic half-stanza by Skúli Þorsteinsson,¹ and from sources that were translations of or influenced by Latin encyclopedic literature, from which medieval Europeans gained most of their knowledge of the natural sciences before the works of Aristotle and other Greek and Arab scholars became available in the period 1125-1230.² Many of the encyclopedic sources to be found in Old Norse manuscripts were gathered together in the three volumes of Alfræði Íslenzk and more recently discussed by Rudolf Simek.³ Works such as Konungs skuggsjá indicate that medieval Scandinavians also had a practical interest in the application of cosmology to their daily lives.⁴ In the fictional discussion in that work between a father and his son, for example, the father makes it clear to the son that someone who ventures out to sea on trading voyages needs to know about the courses of the sun, moon, and stars, and the influence of the moon on the tides.