Note to Þstf Stuttdr 6^II

[4] geti ... kviksettra ‘obtain ... of the holy ones’: The H variant (skulut kviksattar ‘shall not [be] buried alive’) lacks both alliteration and internal rhyme, and the Hr reading (glaðr kviksættar ‘cheerful “quiksættar”’) lacks internal rhyme. The stem vowel in -settra (m. gen. pl.) is an -e-: kviksettr ‘holy one’ from setja ‘place’ (see ANG §513.2 and Note to l. 4 below). Because the metre of Stuttdr is in general very regular (with some internal rhymes and double alliterations lacking in the odd ll.), the first word in l. 4 must be a monosyllabic or a short-stemmed disyllabic word beginning with g- and containing the stem -et- or -ett-. Skj B suggests (at) grǫf golli lofs | glaðr kviksettra ‘[you gave] gold (to) the grave of holy ones, cheerful of glory’ (ll. 3-4), which still leaves l. 4 without internal rhyme. Kock (NN §965; Skald) emends ll. 3-4 to (at) grǫf golli lofs | glætt kviksæti ‘(at) the grave [you covered] the shining relics with gold of praise’. That reading presupposes a suppressed verb and an unattested word, kviksæti ‘relics’. In the present edn, at ‘that’ (l. 2) is taken as a conj. rather than as a prep., and skulut (3rd pers. pl. pres. indic.) ‘shall not’ (so H; glaðr m. nom. sg. ‘cheerful’; Hr) has been emended to geti (3rd pers. sg. pres. subj.) ‘obtain’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
6. Internal references
7. Kari Ellen Gade 2009, ‘ Þórarinn stuttfeldr, Stuttfeldardrápa’ 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, pp. 473-9. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1477> (accessed 21 May 2024)