[5] ár ‘(year’s) abundance’: Cf. Lat. annona ‘year’s yield’. Skj B (cf. LP) and Kock and Meissner 1931, II, 10 construe ár as adv. ‘soon, quickly’, giving the sense svát ár færak sanna ávöxt ‘so that I may bring forth early (i.e. promptly) true fruit’. Though this is possible, the frequency of ár as ‘year’ or ‘year’s abundance’ in the poem, especially in kennings for God or Christ (10/2, 17/1, 20/5, 46/3, 47/3), together with the sowing imagery of the st., argues against it. A similar joint occurrence of ár and ávöxtr as synonyms is found in the ONorw. homily on the parable of the sower: þa fec hann þar mikit ár ok margfaldan á-vöxt ‘then he received a great abundance and manifold yield’ (HómNo, 70).
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- 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.
- HómNo = Indrebø, Gustav. 1931. Gamal norsk homiliebok, Cod. AM 619, 4°. Det norske historiske Kjeldeskrift Fond, Skrifter 54. Oslo: Dybwad. Rpt. 1966. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
- Kock, Ernst Albin and Rudolf Meissner, eds. 1931. Skaldisches Lesebuch. 2 vols. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 17-18. Halle: Niemeyer.