Cite as: Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 26 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 16)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 578.
context: Ketill replies in prose to Forað’s threat by saying that such
hostility is to be expected of her. She tries to capture him in her grasp, but
Ketill utters this defiant stanza, asserting that he trusts in the efficacy of his
weapons. The stanza is introduced by the words: Ketill kvað þá vísu ‘Then Ketill spoke a stanza’.
notes: Ketill depicts the conflict between himself and Forað as a contest between his weapons and her physical strength. In a similar stanza at the close of the hostile exchange between Ketill’s son Grímr loðinkinna ‘Hairy-cheek’ and the giantesses Feima and Kleima (GrL 5), this contrast is expressed pregnantly as one between broddr ‘weapon-point’ and krumma ‘claw’; in both cases the hero’s weapons are the arrows known as Gusisnautar ‘Gusir’s gifts’ (see Note to l. 1).
texts: ‹Ket 26›
editions: Skj Anonyme digte og vers [XIII]: E. 8. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ketill hœngs saga V 11 (AII, 284; BII, 305); Skald II, 162; FSN 2, 130, FSGJ 2, 172, Anderson 1990, 54, 100; Edd. Min. 82.
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