Note to RvHbreiðm Hl 73^III

[5-8]: The second helmingr is garbled and cannot be interpreted without fairly extensive emendations. ‘Baudar’ (l. 5; so both mss) is clearly wrong and apparently based on Rugman’s conjecture that there existed a poetic word baud ‘blood’ (Hl 1941). (a) The present edn follows that of Jón Helgason in Hl 1941, which requires the fewest emendations, but the interpretation remains conjectural. (b) Skj B emends ‘baudar’ to búðar (f. gen. sg.) ‘of the booth’ (a reading suggested in SnE 1848, 247) and construes the first clause as follows: Beiti-Nirðir hauka bǫðvar nômu rjóða snáka girðibúðar ógnar ‘the feeding-Nirðir of the hawks of battle [RAVENS/EAGLES > WARRIORS] began to redden the snakes of the protecting-booth of battle [SWORD-SHEATH > SWORDS]’. Finnur Jónsson’s interpretation of this helmingr results in an impossible word order. (c) Kock (NN §986) reads: beiti-Nirðir búðar snáka nômu rjóða girði ógnar haukum bǫðvar ‘the brandishing-Nirðir of the booth of snakes [GOLD > GENEROUS MEN] began to redden the girdle of fight [SHIELD] for the hawks of battle [RAVENS/EAGLES]’. As Jón Helgason (Hl 1941) points out, the kenning beiti-Nirðir búðar snáka ‘the brandishing-Nirðir of the booth of snakes’ for ‘generous men’ is unparalleled in the corpus of skaldic poetry (and, further, one can brandish a sword, but not gold).

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. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.