Note to KormǪ Sigdr 6^III

[1-2, 4] afspring fats eskis ‘the offspring of the ash vat [BOWL]’: Although eski, like askr alone can mean ‘container made of ash’, here, in combination with fats ‘of the vat’, it is better interpreted as ‘made of ash’. The expression as a whole is a kenning in accordance with the kenning pattern ‘descendant of …’ which normally is only used for persons; cf. e.g. burr bragnings ‘son of the ruler [RULER]’; for this pattern see General Introduction in SkP I, lxxix. Meissner 433 recognized this and interpreted the kenning as ‘small eating vessel’. This interpretation is preferable to the interpretation of Finnur Jónsson (LP: afspringr 1) who translates afspringr here as hvad der kommer af (og gemmes i) et fad ‘what comes out of (and is contained in) a vat’, and regards the whole expression as a kenning for ‘food or drink’. However, his interpretation of afspringr is not in accordance with the other evidence of afspringr/afspringi (LP: afspringr 2, afspringi) which means ‘offspring, descendant’. Kock (NN §1064, followed by Düwel 1985, 16) attempts to combine fats with fésæranda in the sense ‘plunderer of the contents of a chest’, but this would be a very uncommon expression.

References

1. Bibliography
2. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. SkP I = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Ed. Diana Whaley. 2012.
6. Düwel, Klaus. 1985. Das Opferfest von Lade: Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte. Wiener Arbeiten zur germanischen Altertumskunde und Philologie 27. Vienna: Karl M. Halosar.