Note to Anon Liðs 5I
[6] þunnblás ‘of the thin linen cord’: This seems to refer to the bow-string. There are no attestations of this sense of the element blá in OWN. Skj B (followed by Skald) emends þunn to Þunns, hence þekkjǫndum blás meginásar Þunns ‘knowers of the dark mighty pole of Þunnr <= Óðinn> [SWORD > WARRIORS]’. But the emendation is unnecessary if we link blá with OEN blaa ‘coarse linen fibre’ (for this word see Falk 1919, 63; Hoffmann 1982, 137). The cpd þunnblá is closely paralleled by Bragi Þórr 6/3III mjótygill ‘slender string’. Bowstrings were often made of linen (Alm 1957, 460) and in poetry can be called simply hǫrr ‘linen’ (LP: hǫrr 2). In kennings for ‘arrow’ strengr ‘string’ is a common determinant and words such as reyr ‘reed’ and vǫlr ‘stick, staff’ occur as base-words (Meissner 146-7). Accordingly, the meginás(s) ‘mighty pole or shaft’ of the ‘thin linen fibre’ denotes the arrow and the complete kenning þekkjǫndum meginásar þunnblás means ‘experts with arrows’, i.e. ‘bowmen’, in reference to the vikings.
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.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
- 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.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1919. Altwestnordische Kleiderkunde, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Terminologie. Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1918, 3. Kristiania (Oslo): Dybwad.
- Hoffmann, Marta. 1982. ‘Sengeutstyr’. KLNM 15, 137.
- Alm, Josef. 1957. ‘Båge’. KLNM 2, 460.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Þórr’s fishing 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 52.