Note to Eil Þdr 19III
[2, 4] Heiðreks veggjar Þrasis ‘of the Heiðrekr <legendary king> of the wall of Þrasir <dwarf> [STONE > GIANT]’: This giant-kenning follows the widespread pattern ‘ruler of the mountains’. The base-word is a pers. n., Heiðrekr, from heroic legend (cf. Meissner 258). The kenning ‘wall of Þrasir [STONE]’ is the determinant: because dwarfs live in mountain caves, their walls are made of stone. Þrasir is attested as a dwarf’s name in the þulur (Þul Dverga 4/8). Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 398) assumes that Þrasir is an otherwise unattested name of a giant, and he combines it with hǫll ‘hall’ (l. 1). He adds veggjar to the kenning for ‘pillar’, where it is redundant (see Note to ll. 3-4 below).
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Dverga heiti 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 699.