Note to Þul Women 2^III

[7] kván ok elja kiljar ‘the wife and the concubine quarrel’: For the sg. kiljar (‘lit. quarrels’) with a pl. subject, see Note to st. 1/1, 2. The verb kilja (kilja við e-n ‘quarrel with sby’ in U) does not occur elsewhere in Old Norse and its sense is controversial. According to CVC, kilja means ‘fondle’, while LP: kilja 1, Fritzner: kilja and ÍO: kilja 2 assume the opposite sense, ‘quarrel, abuse’ (see also the discussion of the noun kilja in Note to ÞjóðA Lv 6/5, 6^II). Presumably, the latter sense better suits the two heiti for ‘women’ mentioned in this line, kván f. (also kvæn (U)), the poetic term for ‘wedded wife’, which is never used in the general sense ‘woman’, and its opposite, elja f. ‘concubine’. Elja is derived either from ella adv. ‘otherwise’ or from eljan f./n. or eljun f. (variant forms) ‘endurance, energy, jealousy’ (see CVC: elja; AEW: elja). Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108) provides the following definition of this word: Þær konur heita eljur er einn mann eigu ‘Those women are called eljur who are wives of the same man’. See also the kenning for the goddess Jǫrð, ÞjóðA Sex 3/3^II elja Rindar ‘rival of Rindr <giantess>’ (both Jǫrð and Rindr were concubines of the god Óðinn in Old Norse myth).

References

1. Bibliography
2. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
3. 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.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 5 May 2024)
9. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Sexstefja 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 114-16.
10. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Lausavísur 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 171-2.