Note to Þul Women 2^III

[6] frilla [e]r æ grǫm sværu ‘a mistress is forever angry with the mother-in-law’: The reading æ ’r (æ er in the mss) was suggested by Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-89, II, 900) and accepted in Skj B. The rhyme (æ ’r : ‑ær) shows that the [s] (in the earlier es ‘is’) has been rhotacised here and that we are dealing with a contracted form. For C13th unstable forms of such words (e.g. es and er), see Notes to SnSt Ht 58/1 and 82/5, 6. The word frilla f. (= friðla) ‘mistress’ occurs in prose also in the sense ‘harlot’ (see CVC: friðla) and in Old Norse poetry it otherwise appears only once (Hym 30/2), but it is found in the later rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: frilla). This is presumably one of those terms for ‘woman’ used for slander (til lastmælis) which the author of SnE, as he declares, preferred ‘not to copy down’ while composing the chapter Kvinna heiti ókend of Skm despite the fact that such words could be found in poetry (see SnE 1998, I, 108). The term sværa f. ‘mother-in-law’ (cf. Goth. swaihro ‘mother-in-law’) was not commonly used in Old Norse (see Fritzner: sværa), but it is mentioned in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108): Sværa heitir vers móðir ‘A husband’s mother is called sværa’. It is not otherwise used in poetry.

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. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. Finnur Jónsson. 1926-8. Ordbog til de af samfund til udg. af gml. nord. litteratur udgivne Rímur samt til de af Dr. O. Jiriczek udgivne Bósarímur. SUGNL 51. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
6. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
7. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. Internal references
9. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
10. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 1 May 2024)
11. Not published: do not cite ()
12. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 58’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1167.