Kleima Lv 1^VIII (GrL 4)

Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Gríms saga loðinkinna 4 (Kleima Hrímnisdóttir, Lausavísa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 293.

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According to the saga, Grímr has travelled north to the place named Gandvíkr (the White Sea, north-west Russia) during a famine to hunt for food and has seen that there was plenty of fish and game to catch there, though, shortly after he arrived, it suddenly disappeared (GrL ch. 1, FSGJ 2, 186). It was after this that he encountered Feima and Kleima. They explain that their father, Hrímnir, has caused the fish to disappear by means of sorcery. Later, when Grímr has killed the giantesses and their parents, he finds not only a whale stranded on the shore there but in every bay (GrL ch. 2, FSGJ 2, 190, 194). Furthermore the giant Hrímnir turns out to be the brother of the wicked stepmother from Finnmark who has put an evil spell on Grímr’s fiancée Lopthœna, who has disappeared mysteriously (GrL chs 1 and 2, FSGJ 2, 185, 193). This stanza is introduced by the remark Kleima kvað ‘Kleima said’.

[3-4]: Some mss have the readings braut undir sik | búsveina lið or braut under sik | búkalla lið ‘trampled down the troop of farmers’ or braut undir sik | búsveina ‘trampled down the farmers’ suggesting that the giant Hrímnir conquered or attacked human settlements (cf. HHj 17). Although these readings make sense grammatically the reading of the older mss is preferable, since it accords better with the plot.