Grani Frag 1^III

Glœðr hykk (Glamma slóðar)
— gramr eldi svá — felldu.

… {Slóðar Glamma} … ; hykk glœðr felldu … ; svá eldi gramr.

… {Of the track of Glammi <sea-king>} [SEA] … ; I believe that glowing embers felled … ; thus the lord kindled.

Mss: R(38v), Tˣ(40v), A(13v), B(6r), 744ˣ(38r), C(8r) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Glamma: gamlar Tˣ, A, 744ˣ;    slóðar: ‘flo᷎du’ Tˣ, flæðar A, 744ˣ    [2] felldu: fellda 744ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 387, Skj BI, 357, Skald I, 179, NN §874; SnE 1848-87, I, 506-7, II, 454, 537, 602, SnE 1931, 178, SnE 1998, I, 98.

Context: Glœðr ‘glowing embers’ is given in Skm as one of several heiti for ‘fire’.

Notes: [All]: The couplet is too fragmentary to allow for a meaningful reconstructed reading. — [1] glœðr ‘glowing embers’: Feminine acc. pl. of glóð ‘red-hot ember, glowing material’. — [1] slóðar Glamma ‘of the track of Glammi <sea-king> [SEA]’: This is a kenning for ‘sea’ with the base-word in the gen., and it must have been a determinant in an extended kenning whose base-word was contained in the missing lines. Kock (NN §874) construes Glœðr hykk feldu, Glamma slóðar gramr eldi svá translated as Lågor, tror jag, fällde husen: havets konung brände så ‘Flames, I believe, destroyed the houses, the king of the ocean burned thus’ (ll. 1-2; assuming that ‘houses’ or something similar, the object of felldu, was present in a no longer extant line). That interpretation is strained because of the unparalleled kenning for ‘sea-king’ (gramr slóðar Glamma ‘ruler of the track of Glammi <sea-king>’). The A and 744ˣ variant, which can be normalised as gamlar flœðar f. acc. pl. ‘old floods’, makes no sense in the context, and ‘flo᷎du’ (Tˣ) cannot be construed in any meaningful way. For the sea-king Glammi, see Note to Þul Sea-kings l. 7. — [2] felldu ‘felled’: This is the past inf. of fella ‘fell, make fall’, and the object of this verb is likely to have been some type of wooden structure that was destroyed by the fire (cf. Kock’s conjecture above).

References

1. Bibliography
2. 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.
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. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 4 May 2024)
9. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Heiti for sea-kings’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 987. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1045> (accessed 4 May 2024)