Note to Anon Nikdr 3III
[All]: The helmingr requires an understanding of the narrative recounted in the gospel of Luke (I.41), in which John the Baptist, still in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, leaps in recognition of the infant Jesus in the womb of his mother Mary, who is visiting Elizabeth. According to Luke I.36, the two women were cousins. Exactly how the poet of Nikdr used this incident as a dæmi in his poem about S. Nicholas is uncertain, but the evidence of the priest Hallur’s later poem (sts 14 and 16 are cited for comparison in SnE 1848-87, II, 210-11 n. 1) suggests that the circumstances surrounding the birth of both saints was the point of comparison. If so, this helmingr must have come not very long after the stanza numbered 1.
References
- Bibliography
- SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Nikulásdrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 565. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1034> (accessed 1 May 2024)