Note to VSt Erf 2III
[1, 2-3, 4] sendi orða myrk-Danar beina grœnnar Hlóðynjar ‘the distributor of the words of the dark-Dane of the bones of green Hlóðyn <earth> [MOUNTAINS > GIANT > GOLD > GENEROUS MAN]’: This lengthy kenning is based on the still unexplained kenning pattern ‘words of the giant’ for ‘gold’ (cf. Meissner 227), for which Snorri Sturluson in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 3) offers an otherwise unknown story about three sons of a giant who divide up their inheritance and carry away their shares of gold in their mouths (see Note to Anon Bjark 5/8). The kenning’s base-word Danar ‘of the Dane’ conforms to the giant-kenning pattern ‘people (or one of a people) of the stones’ (cf. Marold 1990a, 109-11). Myrk-Danar ‘of the dark-Dane’ is taken as a cpd here, since there is no convincing motivation for tmesis, as Skj B assumes, of myrk- (l. 2) and -beina (l. 4); cf. NN §342. Konráð Gíslason (1874, 28) combines myrk ‘dark’ and jǫrð ‘earth’, which, though itself a fitting collocation, results in a tripartite l. 2.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Marold, Edith. 1990a. ‘Skaldendichtung und Mythologie’. In Pàroli 1990, 107-30.
- Konráð Gíslason. 1874. Om navnet Ýmir. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs skrifter, ser. 5. Historisk og filosofisk afdeling IV, 11. Copenhagen: Luno.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Bjarkamál in fornu 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 502.
- (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 6 May 2024)