is cryptic and most probably corrupt. The final stanza does not appear to form a satisfactory conclusion, suggesting that the poem as it has come down to us is incomplete. According to analysis of the best manuscripts, the various copies all derive from a single archetype. Since it is not transmitted in other than paper manuscripts, the poem is often considered a later work, possibly a post-medieval imitation of an Eddic poem, akin to Gunnarslagr (or Gunnars-slagr), composed by (1714-1791). Nevertheless, a vellum manuscript of the poem may once have existed. Árni Magnússon makes reference to the poem in a letter dated June 18, 1729 to Jón Halldórsson, Dean of Hítardalur, raising the possibility that such a manuscript was lost in the Great Fire in Copenhagen of 1728, which destroyed a large part of Arni's library, including as many as 15 bound manuscripts of Eddic poetry. Bugge (who concluded the poem was of late authorship) knew the letter but dismissed it as unreliable. Publication history The first printed edition of the poem appeared in the so-called Arnamagnæan edition of Edda Sæmundar hinns fróði (1787). The tome was a collaboration of several co-editors, but Lassen identifies Guđmundur Magnusson (Gudmundus Magnæus, 1741-1798) as the poem's editor, translator (into Latin), and commentator. The text is that of MS Icel. 47, a manuscript edition made by , which contained variant readings, used in the critical apparatus of the edition. The critical apparatus also made use of commentary by aforementioned , scribbled on the manuscript AM 424 fol. The poem was published next in Edda Sæmundar hinns fróða, 1818, edited by Rasmus Rask and Arvid August Afzelius. Hallgrimur Scheving (1837), P.A. Munch (1847), Hermann Lüning (1859), Theodor Möbius (1860), and Frederich Wilhelm Bergmann (1875) also published editions of the poem. Finnur Magnusson (1822), Karl Simrock (1851) and Benjamin Thorpe (1865) produced translations into Danish, German and English respectively. Sophus Bugge in his 1867 edition of the Poetic Edda argued that the poem was a work of the 17th century, and after this, it was mostly ignored by editors and students of the Edda. An exception is Viktor Rydberg, who in 1886 accepted the poem as authentic and sought to explain its narrative as referring to the time Idun was taken from Asgard by Thjazi. Reception Interest in the poem has been renewed after 1998, when Eysteinn Björnsson and William P. Reaves posted an edition of