Note to Anon Leið 44VII
[3] brands ‘of the sword-blade’: Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1844, 70) considered this to be the pers. n. Brandr, and construed (with emendation) Brandr hefr ǫrr kveðit drápa til enda ‘Brandr has spoken the poem to the end’. He argued that the poet is giving his own name here, as he has named his mentor in 43/8. In the introduction to his 1844 edn (vi) and in 444(3)ˣ, Sveinbjörn identified this Brandr as Brandr Jónsson, Abbot of Þykkvabœr 1247-62 and Bishop of Skálholt 1263-4. Brandr is credited with authorship of several religious texts, most notably Gyðinga saga (Wolf 1995). If, however, Leið can be dated to the mid to late C12th, as is argued in the Introduction, this attribution becomes chronologically implausible. Finnur Jónsson (LH II, 118) pointed out that Sveinbjörn’s emendation is unnecessary, since rr brands ‘the messenger of the sword-blade’ makes a perfectly acceptable man-kenning (LP: 2. brandr).
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- LH = Finnur Jónsson. 1920-4. Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie. 3 vols. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Gad.
- Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1844. Fjøgur gømul kvæði. Boðsrit til að hlusta á þá opinberu yfirheyrslu í Bessastaða Skóla þann 22-29 mai 1844. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla. Bessastaðir: Helgi Helgason.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Codex Frisianus’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=22> (accessed 8 May 2024)
- Katrina Attwood 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Leiðarvísan’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 137-78. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1022> (accessed 8 May 2024)
- Not published: do not cite ()