Cite as: Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 16 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 11)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 566.

The following twelve stanzas in ljóðaháttr and fornyrðislag (or málaháttr) comprise a senna between Ketill hœngr and a troll-woman (trollkona) named Forað, whom he meets while on a fishing expedition during a famine which has taken hold in the region of Hrafnista where he lives. According to the prose text Ketill sees the woman on a headland, where she has just come from the sea, and is as black as pitch. She glotti í móti sólu ‘grinned scornfully in the face of the sun’. The troll-woman’s name means literally ‘an inaccessible place’ or ‘a place that one cannot manage to escape from’, hence ‘danger, dangerous creature’ (LP: forað). The episode has a fairly close parallel in GrL ch. 1 (GrL 1-5).

Hvat er þat flagða, er ek sá á fornu nesi? At uppiverandi sólu, er ek hefik önga eina leiðiligri litit. Hvat er þat flagða, er ek sá á fornu nesi? At uppiverandi sólu, er ek hefik önga eina leiðiligri litit. Hvat er þat flagða, er ek sá á fornu nesi? Er ek hefik litit önga eina leiðiligri at uppiverandi sólu.

text prose order   What kind of ogress is that, whom I saw on the ancient headland? I have seen not a single one more ugly while the sun is up.

context: The stanza is introduced by the words: Ketill kvað vísu ‘Ketill spoke a stanza’.

notes: This stanza has a close parallel in GrL 1: the hero addresses the giantess or troll-woman, describes her rocky environment and says she is the ugliest thing he has ever seen. In 343a and 340ˣ this stanza consists of two long-lines and a full-line without a caesura; in 471 the stanza is entirely in ljóðaháttr, since ll. 1-2 are followed by the additional line ok glottir við guma ‘and grins at the man’, i.e. ‘at me’. Previous eds have printed the stanza with this line. In other mss the stanza is entirely in fornyrðislag and the wording of ll. 3-8 is very different from that in 343a, 471 and 340ˣ (for a text, see Edd. Min. 80 n.). In these lines the giantess is not merely described as ‘ugly’; she is said to have ‘black eyes’. On the ugliness of giants see Schulz (2004, 147-53).

texts: ‹Ket 16›

editions: Skj Anonyme digte og vers [XIII]: E. 8. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ketill hœngs saga V 1 (AII, 282; BII, 303); Skald II, 160-1, NN §2391; FSN 2, 127, FSGJ 2, 169, Anderson 1990, 52, 98, 438; Edd. Min. 80.

sources

AM 343 a 4° (343a)	56v, 15 - 56v, 16	(Ket)
AM 471 4° (471)	53v - 53v	(Ket)
AM 173 folx (173x)	8r, 12 - 8r, 19	(Ket)
AM 340 4°x (340x)	16, 7 - 16, 9	(GrL)
AM 342 4°x (342x)	72r, 3 - 72r, 5	(Ket)
AM 552 q 4°x (552qx)	6v, 13 - 6v, 15	(Ket)
AM 109 a II 8°x (109a IIx)	159v, 11 - 159v, 13	(Ket)