[5] Jólnir: So B and also attested in skaldic poetry (cf. Eil Þdr 13/7). The A variant, normalised jǫlnir, must be a scribal error. Jólnir is most likely formed from jóln n. pl. ‘gods’, hence perhaps Jólnir ‘one of the gods’. Jóln, in turn, is derived from jól n. pl. ‘Yule’, the name of the great heathen winter feast, later transferred to Christmas (ÍO: jóln). In Flat 1860-8, I, 564, the etymology of this Óðinn-name is explained as a heathen derivative from jól ‘Yule’, whereas in Ágrip, the name of the feast is erroneously interpreted as originating from that of the god (ÍF 29, 3): var af Jólni jól kǫlluð ‘Yule was named after Jólnir’ (see also Falk 1924, 20-1).
References
- Bibliography
- Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
- ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
- ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1924. Odensheite. Skrifter utg. av Videnskapsselskapet i Kristiania. II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1924, 10. Kristiania (Oslo): Dybwad.
- Internal references
- Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 13’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 104.