Þjóð Haustl 9III/5 — bekkjar ‘to the bench’
Sér bað sagna hrœri
sorgœran mey fœra,
þás ellilyf ása,
áttrunnr Hymis, kunni.
Brunnakrs of kom bekkjar
Brísings goða dísi
girðiþjófr í garða
grjót-Níðaðar síðan.
Áttrunnr Hymis bað hrœri sagna, sorgœran, fœra sér mey, þás kunni ellilyf ása. Girðiþjófr Brísings of kom síðan dísi goða í garða grjót-Níðaðar bekkjar Brunnakrs.
The kinsman of Hymir <giant> [GIANT = Þjazi] ordered the leader of the troops [= Loki], pain-crazed, to bring him the girl who knew the old-age medicine of the gods. The girdle-thief of Brísingr [= Loki] afterwards caused the lady of the gods [= Iðunn] to go into the courts of the rock-Níðuðr <legendary tyrant> [GIANT = Þjazi] to the bench of Brunnakr (‘Spring-field’).
readings
[5] bekkjar: so all others, ‘keckiar’ R
notes
[5] bekkjar Brunnakrs ‘to the bench of Brunnakr (“Spring-field”)’: Here understood to be a place in Jǫtunheimar, where Loki took Iðunn. Bekkjar must then be construed as a gen. of direction (cf. NS §152 and NN §1017), and Brunnakr, lit. ‘Spring-field’, an otherwise unknown place, the name suggesting fertility. Other scholars (e.g. Skj B; LP: Brunnakr) combine this phrase with dísi lit. ‘the dís’ (or ‘lady’, see Note to l. 6 below) to produce a kenning for Iðunn ‘the dís of Brunnakr’s bench’. Marold (1983, 162-4) opts for the homonym bekkr ‘brook’, and understands the kenning for Iðunn as ‘the gods’ lady of the brook of Brunnakr’, but the close similarity in meaning between bekkr ‘brook’ and brunnr ‘spring, well’ perhaps calls this interpretation into doubt, although Marold argues (on the basis of the tmesis of Iðunn’s name in st. 10/3, 4) that Þjóðólfr must have understood a connection between this goddess and water (unnr ‘wave’).