Note to Anon Óldr 28^I

[5] skýranna* ‘of cloud-halls’: (a) The ms. has a superscript mark above ‘r’ which is unclear, but probably signifies <rv>, hence ‘skyrrvnar’. Skj B’s emendation to skýranna (n. gen. pl.) ‘of cloud-halls’ is adopted here. It gives a sky-kenning of a well-attested type (Meissner 105-6), though overdetermined, since skýrann ‘cloud-hall’ alone is a sky-kenning (as in Arn Þorfdr 5/8^II), making tjald n. ‘tent, awning’ redundant. Tjald could therefore be treated as a metaphorical gen. element rather than part of the kenning. Alternatively, skýrǫnn could possibly be taken as a kenning for ‘air’ which combines with tjald to form the sky-kenning, but it is not comparable with the attested air-kennings (Meissner 108). (b) The alternative emendations proposed by Gullberg (1875) and by Kock (Skald; NN §2118) lack parallels and are unconvincing. (c) A further alternative is minimal emendation to skírrunnar (m. nom. pl.) ‘shield-trees’. The adj. skírr ‘bright’ appears as a shield-heiti (i.e. ‘bright one’) in Þul Skjaldar 2/8^III and in HólmgB Lv 14/5^V (Korm 50) skírviðr ‘shield-tree’, but there are no other apostrophes in the poem, and this solution would leave another of the helmingr’s kennings incomplete.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Gullberg, H., ed. 1875. Óláfs drápa Tryggvasonar: fragment ur “Bergsboken”. Lund: Berling.
7. Internal references
8. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Skjaldar heiti 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 825.
9. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Þorfinnsdrápa 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 235-6.
10. Edith Marold (ed.) 2022, ‘Kormáks saga 50 (Hólmgǫngu-Bersi Véleifsson, Lausavísur 14)’ 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. 1113.