Note to Þskakk Erldr 1^II

[7] vágfýl*ingi (m. dat. sg.) ‘of the sea-fulmar [SHIP]’: Dat. of possession. Fýlingr ‘fulmar’ (by emendation) is taken here as the base-word in a kenning for ‘ship’. According to LP: fýling, the word is attested as a f., but is more likely to be a m. noun (taken as a m. dat. sg. here). A fulmar is an arctic bird (Fulmarus glacialis). For comparable kennings for ‘ship’, see Meissner 208, 216. The emendation also restores the internal rhyme (-ýl- : -él-). The last part of the cpd as it stands in the mss is difficult to make sense of, and the different spellings of the word show that the various scribes had problems recognising the word they were copying. Fylvingr (so Kˣ, E, J2ˣ) is the name of a sword (see LP: fylvingr), and according to Meissner (222), it denotes the prow of the ship (brandr), but that explanation is not obvious. Kock (NN §348A) derives fylvingr from the adj. fǫlr ‘pale’. In his opinion, fylvingr denoted sth. of a dark brown or dark grey colour, either ‘sword’, ‘ship’, ‘staff’ or ‘nut’ (the latter is f., fylving). The problem with that explanation is that fylv- in the meaning ‘dark’ is otherwise not attested in ON.

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.