Note to Þul Himins I 1III
[19] Skatyrnir (m.): The many variants (see Readings above) indicate that this name was obscure to the scribes. Neither the quality nor the quantity of the second vowel is certain, and, although the majority of the ms. witnesses give the first element as skat-, R has skatt-. Falk (1925b, 38) argues that the heiti is a corrupt form of Lat. Saturnus altered under the influence of ON skati m. ‘towering, lordly man’ (cf. New Norw. skat ‘tree-top’), and he suggests the meaning ‘top-sky’, the ninth heaven. According to Finnur Jónsson (LP: skattýrnir), the second element of the cpd is possibly related to úr n. ‘drizzling rain’, while the origin of its first part (skat(t)-) is unknown. Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 390) gives the tentative translation ‘rich-wetter’ based on the R variant ‘scattvrnir’ (cf. skattr ‘treasure’), but none of the other mss has skatt- with a geminate ‑tt- as the first element in this name.
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1925b. ‘Himmelsfaerene i vår gamle litteratur’. In [n. a.]. 1925. Heidersskrift til Marius Hægstad fraa vener og læresveinar, 15de juli 1925. Oslo: Norli, 34-8.