Arn Hardr 16^II/5 — in* ‘on’

readings

[5] in*: ins all

notes

[5, 8] heilǫg fold in* øfra ‘the holy land on high [lit. the holy, higher land]’: There is no m. or n. noun which ‘ens ofra’ (ins øfra ‘of the higher’) in the mss could qualify. (a) The emendation produces what seems a natural expression for ‘heaven’, and it is supported by the occurrence of fold ‘land, earth’ in later heaven-kennings: fold éls ‘storm’s ground’ (Anon Pl 26/5, 7^VII) and skýfold ‘cloud-land’ (Anon Mgr 43/6^VII). In øfra is also partially paralleled by ofar lǫndum meaning ‘in heaven’ in a similar context in Hfr ErfÓl 27/8^I. (b) Kock retains the ms. reading, taking heilǫg fold ens øfra to mean ‘the holy land of the High One (God)’ (NN §842), but it seems unlikely that a mere comparative would be applied to God, and there is no evidence for this. (c) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B emends to et øfra, which he takes with heilǫg fold in the sense ‘up there’ (deroppe). Adverbial it øfra most usually means ‘by the inland route’ and is accompanied by a verb of motion and some indication of destination, but ‘up there, in the air’ does find some support, albeit slight: see Fritzner: efri 1a.

grammar

Pronouns and determiners: Definite article

The definite article is normally suffixed to nouns, except in some cases where it is used with an adjective. If the noun form ends in a vowel, the 'i' in the article is dropped. If the noun form ends in 'um', the 'm' and 'i' are both dropped. E.g. hesta (acc. pl.) > hestana (acc. pl. definite); hestum (dat. pl.) > hestunum (dat. pl. definite)