[8] gyltar tungur hjalta ‘gilded tongues of hilts [SWORDS]’: Cf. Kári Lv 3/5-6V hátungur hjalta ‘long tongues of hilts’ i.e. ‘swords’. The present kenning for ‘sword’, which contains the base-word ‘tongue’, is an artful reversal of the more common practice of referring to the tongue with the base-word ‘sword’ (see Guðrún Nordal 2001, 252). The latter is described in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108): tunga er opt kǫlluð sverð máls eða munns ‘the tongue is often called sword of speech or mouth’.
References
- Bibliography
- Guðrún Nordal. 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 2 May 2024)
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 48 (Kári Sǫlmundarson, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1288.