Note to Hfr ErfÓl 8^I

[4] við bǫlku randar ‘at the walls of the rim [SHIELDS]’: (a) Bǫlkr here seems most likely to function as the base-word of a shield-kenning (Reichardt 1928, 57-8), perhaps specifically one denoting the shield-wall (ONP: bǫlkr, balkr 3 ‘wall of people’; and cf. hnitvegg ‘clash-wall’ [SHIELD], st. 7/6). (b) Both Finnur Jónsson (in LP: 1. bǫlkr 2) and Kock (NN §475) suggest randar bǫlku means ‘shield section [of the laws]’, cf. erfðabǫlkr ‘inheritance section’. Kock takes this with the main clause, which thus becomes an extended metaphor: ‘axes’ law’, proclaimed við randar bǫlku ‘in accordance with the “shield section”’, results in imminent death (for the shield-bearers, presumably). While undeniably attractive, and supported e.g. by Ohlmarks (1958, 447), this interpretation is rather tenuous. Við bǫlku ‘in accordance with the [law-]section’ is otherwise unknown (ONP: bǫlkr, balkr 4). (c) In Skj B Finnur Jónsson construes bǫlkr randar as a battle-kenning (most likely ‘storm of the (shield)-rim’, cf. LP: 2. bǫlkr ‘storm’), and takes við randar bǫlku with the intercalary clause, which produces ‘life soon ended for men in the battle’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
5. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
6. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
7. Ohlmarks, Åke. 1958. Tors skalder och Vite-Krists. Trosskiftestidens isländska furstelovskalder, 980-1013. Stockholm: Geber.