Note to Anon Leið 22^VII

[5-6] bjǫrk brims brands ‘birch of the fire of the sea [GOLD > WOMAN]’: A kenning for ‘woman’ is clearly required here. In that context, it has not been possible to make sense of B’s reading ‘banndz’, which could be gen. sg. of band ‘a bond, fetter, team, confederacy etc.’, sometimes used in pl. of the Norse gods. In a n. to Jón Sigurðsson’s transcript of 624 in 444(2)ˣ, Sveinbjörn Egilsson suggested emendation to beins, gen. sg. of beinn ‘ebony’, which is listed among heiti for ‘tree’ in a þula but is not attested elesewhere (LP: 1. beinn). Aside from its rarity, the noun does not work in a kenning which already has a tree-element, bjǫrk f. ‘birch’ in l. 5. Sveinbjörn rethought this emendation in preparing his printed edn (1844, 62 n. 10), in which he emended to brands gen. sg. of m. brandr ‘fire, flame’. This creates the gold-kenning, brandr brims ‘flame of the sea’, whose bjǫrk is a woman, in this case the Virgin Mary. Sveinbjörn’s second emendation has been adopted by all subsequent eds.

References

1. Bibliography
2. 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.