Note to Anon Krm 6^VIII

[5] í Skarpaskerjum ‘in Skarpasker’: The reference is almost certainly to the islands referred to in ESk Run 8/3^II in the phrase við Skǫrpusker ‘at Skǫrpusker’, and identified by A. B.Taylor (1965, 132-3; cf. ESk Run 8/3^II and Note there; Townend 1998, 69-70) with the Farne Islands, a group of islands off the north-east coast of England (of Northumberland, cf. st. 14/4, below). If this p. n. in the form Skǫrpusker means ‘the sharp skerries’ (so SkP II, 557) or the ‘sharp rocks’ (Townend 1998, 70), this would imply that it is formed from the weak pl. form of the adj. skarpr ‘sharp’ used attributively with the noun sker n. pl. ‘skerries, rocks’, and that the dat. pl. form that would be expected here is Skǫrpuskerjum. That Skarpasker was an accepted nom. and acc. pl. variant form of Skǫrpusker, implying the dat. pl. form Skarpaskerjum, is perhaps suggested by its occurrence in one of the variant readings of ESk Run 8/3^II as preserved in Mork (see SkP II, 557), and also in the prose introducing the relevant verse passage in Hkr (see ÍF 28, 329), where only the first half-stanza is preserved, though Skarpasker could be taken as n. acc. sg. rather than pl. in these instances.

References

1. Bibliography
2. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
3. Taylor, A. B. 1965. ‘Eysteinn Haraldsson in the West, c. 1151: Oral Traditions and Written Record’. In Small 1965, 119-34.
4. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
5. SkP II = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Ed. Kari Ellen Gade. 2009.
6. Internal references
7. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=4> (accessed 23 May 2024)
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Morkinskinna’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=87> (accessed 23 May 2024)
9. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Runhenda 8’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 556-7.