Note to ǪrvOdd Ævdr 18VIII (Ǫrv 88)
[All]: This stanza and the following sts 89-90 have a tenuous relationship to a passage in the prose text (Ǫrv 1888, 40-5) which tells how Oddr shoots a large bear in a forest (skógarbjǫrn einn mikinn), flays it, and puts a spike through its mouth, then places it on a cliff facing towards the mainland. This action disturbs the giants living in the area and they mass against Oddr and his men, who they regard as children because of their small size. Oddr fends off an attack by a giantess by standing behind the bear, having placed glowing embers in its mouth, and then shoots at the woman with his arrows, Gusisnautar. The prose narrative employs motifs which may show some knowledge of Saami and Finnic rituals connected with the bear and bear hunts (cf. DuBois 1999, 48; Tolley 2009, I, 559-63).
References
- Bibliography
- Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
- DuBois, Thomas A. 1999. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Tolley, Clive. 2009. Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic. FF Communications 144, No. 296-7. 2 parts. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica.