Note to Anon (FoGT) 19^III

[7] mærr ‘mærr’: Ms. W has ‘męr’. This word is here understood as the poetic noun mœrr (later mærr) ‘land’, especially flat land (cf. LP: mœrr), a term that is applied specifically to the western Norwegian district of that name, Møre (OIcel. Mœrr, Mærr). It assumes that the poet understood the semantic relationship between the two terms. To follow the pattern set down in ll. 5-6, all the ligatures in ll. 7-8 must be the same, as they would be if the C13th Old Icelandic change of [ø:] > [æ:] is applied. Other eds have understood mærr to mean ‘a man from Møre’. The problem with interpreting mærr thus is that the name for the inhabitants of Møre only occurs in the pl. Mœrir, Mærir (cf. LP: 2. Mœrir). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) understands mœrr as meaning ‘swamp, marsh’. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, II, 218-19) proposed mær ‘maiden’, which is a possible reading, although it does not make a great deal of sense, but, in a stanza like this, perhaps that is something one should not expect to find. Jón Helgason (1970a, 216) suggested that the first word was originally mór ‘moor, heath’ and that the line originally read kallaz mór á Mœri ‘it is called heathland in Møre’, which would preserve the [o:] : [ø:] correspondence we find in st. 18 and the first helmingr of st. 19.

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. 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.
4. 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.
5. Jón Helgason. 1970a. ‘Þriðji íhaldskarl’. Fróðskaparrit 18, 206-26.