Note to Ólhelg Lv 2^I

[3-4] við galla grjótǫlnis ‘with the affliction of the stone-mackerel [SNAKE > WINTER]’: (a) This interpretation follows Kock (NN §595) in taking galli as a common noun. Kennings representing winter as the harm or misery of snakes are common, and Meissner 109 cites two (though not this) with galli as their base-word; its sense in these kennings is ‘affliction, harm’ rather than the more usual ‘fault, flaw’. (b) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B treated galla as a reference to the woman’s husband and arranged the words of ll. 1-4 as follows: Bǫl’s þats grjótǫlnis landrifs lind … skal fǫlna … við Galla ‘It is a misfortune that the woman … must grow pale … with Galli’. He took grjótǫlnir ‘stone-mackerel’ to denote ‘snake’, the landrif ‘land-rib [STONE]’ of the snake as ‘gold’, and the lind ‘lime-tree’ of gold as ‘woman’ (LP: grjótǫlnir). However, as seen in the Note to ll. 1-2, the woman-kenning lind landrifs is already complete, and although numerous kennings represent gold as the resting-place of serpents or dragons, base-words meaning ‘stone, rock’ are all but unparalleled (cf. Meissner 237-9). (c) Finally, it is possible that galli is a pun: part of the kenning assumed under (a), but also alluding to a man named Galli (cf. NN §2773A).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
5. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.