FriðÞ Lv 4VIII (Frið 4)/8 — lög ‘the sea’
Þat var forðum á Framnesi;
rera ek opt á tal við Ingibjörgu.
Nú skal ek sigla í svölu veðri,
láta létt und mér lögdýr bruna.
Þat var forðum á Framnesi; ek rera opt á tal við Ingibjörgu. Nú skal ek sigla í svölu veðri, láta lögdýr bruna létt und mér.
It was long ago at Framnes; I often rowed to have conversation with Ingibjǫrg. Now I must sail in the cold storm, make the sea-animal [SHIP] speed easily beneath me.
readings
[8] lög‑: ‘[…]’ 568ˣ, lang papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
notes
[8] lögdýr ‘the sea-animal [SHIP]’: The reading of 510 and 27ˣ, 568ˣ having a lacuna. A regular ship-kenning with an animal name as base-word, cf. Meissner 208-12. The B redaction mss all have langdýr ‘long animal’, an inferior reading probably affected by the cpd langskip ‘longship’; the second element -dýr ‘animal’, present in all mss except 568ˣ, signals a ship-kenning, however. The B mss also read hlaupa ‘leap, jump’, a verb that fits the metaphorical sense of the ship as an animal, but is the lectio facilior by comparison with the A mss’ bruna ‘speed, rush’. Lögdýr could be sg. or pl.: Skj B treats it as pl., but the speaker, Friðþjófr, is talking about his own actions sailing his own ship, Elliði, hence the sg. translation here. The saga prose does not state that Friðþjófr commanded more than one ship.
kennings
- lögdýr — the sea-animal [SHIP]