Note to Anon Mhkv 12^III

[1] rár (f. acc. pl.) ‘sailyards’: Sailyards are horizontal arms supporting the sail, and the rá was typically long and slender (see McGrail 1998, 232; Jesch 2001a, 162). The meaning of the adage, which also occurs in Hávm 74/3, is disputed. This short yardarm has a long bibliography, beginning with Eiríkr Magnússon (1888, 334), who proposed as context a shipwreck in which a drowning man, clutching a floating yardarm, would wish it longer. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (1915b, 78) made the sensible equation: small sailyard = slow ship. Falk (1922, 174) noted that a short yardarm was a good thing when battling gusts in a fjord. Heusler (1915-16, 115) returned to the improbable reading (CPB II, 365) of ON rár ‘nooks’ as ‘cabins’: ‘scant (i.e. cramped) are a ship’s berths.’ In HHund I 49/4 (NK 137), rár langar ‘long sailyards’ are a good thing. Hermann Pálsson (1999a, 202) recalled the double-entendre proverb in which reiði means both ‘anger’ and ‘(ship’s) tackle’: stutt (or skömm) er skipsmanna reiði ‘short is the anger/equipment of sailors’. See also Ísl. Málsh.: reiði; skipmaður.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
3. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
4. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
5. Björn Magnússon Ólsen. 1915b. ‘Till Eddakvadene’. ANF 31, 52-95.
6. Falk, Hjalmar. 1922. ‘Hávamál strofe 74’. MM, 173-5.
7. Hermann Pálsson. 1999a. Hávamál í ljósi íslenskrar menningar. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.
8. McGrail, Seán. 1998. Ancient Boats in North-West Europe: The Archaeology of Water Transport to AD 1500. London: Longman.
9. Heusler, Andreas. 1915-16. ‘Sprichwörter in den eddischen Sittengedichten’. Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 25, 105-15 and 26, 42-57. Rpt. in Heusler 1969, 195-222.
10. Internal references
11. Not published: do not cite ()
12. Not published: do not cite ()