SnSt Ht 60III/4 — fella ‘of the fellers’
Álmdrósar skylr ísa
ár flest meginbára sára;
kœnn lætr hræs á hrǫnnum
hjálmsvell jǫfurr gella fella.
Styrjǫkla kná stiklir
stinnmens legi venja benja;
lætr stillir frør fylla
fólksund hjarar lunda unda.
Flest ár skylr meginbára sára ísa álmdrósar; kœnn jǫfurr lætr hjálmsvell gella á hrǫnnum fella hræs. Stiklir stinnmens kná venja styrjǫkla legi benja; stillir lætr frør unda fylla fólksund lunda hjarar.
Most years a mighty wave of wounds [BLOOD] rinses icicles of the elm-bow-woman [VALKYRIE > SWORDS]; the wise prince makes the helmet’s ice-sheet [SWORD] scream in waves of the fellers of carrion [SWORDS > BLOOD]. The dispenser of the stiff necklace [GENEROUS MAN] accustoms battle-glaciers [SWORDS] to the ocean of wounds [BLOOD]; the leader makes the frost of wounds [SWORD] replenish the battle-sea [BLOOD] of the trees of the sword [WARRIORS].
notes
[4] fella (m. gen. pl.) ‘of the fellers’: Following Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, III), Möbius (SnE 1879-81) and Konráð Gíslason (1895-7) construe this as an unattested adv. (= ferliga ‘terribly’), and Kock (NN §2184) takes it as a verb, as part of an asyndetic construction gella, fella translated as skrälla, fälla ‘crash, fell’, but the transitive verb fella makes little sense here (we would expect the intransitive falla ‘fall’; see SnE 2007, 64). Fellir m. ‘feller’ is an agent noun from the weak verb fella ‘fell, kill’ and the word is not uncommon as a base-word in kennings (LP: fellir).
kennings
- fella hræs. — of the fellers of carrion. [SWORDS]
- hrǫnnum fella hræs. — waves of the fellers of carrion. [BLOOD]
grammar
case: gen.
number: pl.