Svipdagsmál

To date, scholarship has reached no consensus on the meaning of the poems, producing a number of competing theories.

[7] Jan de Vries (1941) concluded that the author had formed an Eddic poem out of a fairy story of an enchanted princess and her lover, through borrowing and invention.

Schröder (1966) discerned elements of the myth and ritual which treat the reawakening of the earth beneath the rays of the sun each spring.

Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (1975) suggests that the substance of the poem comes from the Irish legend of Art mac Cuinn.

Lotte Motz (1975) argues that the poem represents the initiation of a young hero into a mother-goddess cult, identifying Svipdagr's mother Gróa with his lover, Menglöð, based primarily on a limited interpretation of the word mögr in Fjölsvinnsmál 47.