Note to Hókr Eirfl 3I
[5] borðmikinn Barða ‘the high-sided Barði (“Prow”)’: Barði, a derivative of barð ‘prow, stem’, is also recorded as a ship-heiti in Þul Skipa 3/3III. Eiríkr jarl’s ship was variously called Barði or Járnbarði(nn) ‘(the) Iron-prow’, which could indicate that the stem had been fortified for ramming (so Falk 1912, 43-4; but see Jesch 2001a, 159). Cf. the (probably unhistorical) description of this ship in Flat 1860-8, I, 481: þar var skegg a ofanverdu bardinu huorotueggia en nidr fra skegginu iarnnspaung breid ok þykk sem bardit ok tok allt j sio ofan ‘There was a beak on top of the prow on both sides and down from the beak an iron rod as broad and thick as the prow and it went all the way down into the sea’. See also Note to Þul Skipa 3/3III. The rhyming and alliterating pair borð- and barð- is also found (in identical positions) in Bragi Þórr 4/1III and Eskál Lv 2b/3V (Eg 125).
References
- Bibliography
- Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1912. Altnordisches Seewesen. Wörter und Sachen 4. Heidelberg: Winter.
- 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.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Skipa heiti 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 865.
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Þórr’s fishing 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 50.
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 12 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 185.
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 125 (Einarr skálaglamm Helgason, Lausavísur in Egils saga 2b)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 374.