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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Þul Waves 1III

[7, 8] elg egghúfs ‘the elk of the sharp-edged hull [SHIP]’: The exact sense of egg- in egghúfr is not clear. As a first element in compounds, egg- usually means ‘(sharp) edge (of a weapon)’ (LP: egg f. 2). That meaning has been adopted in the present edn, in which ‘sharp-edged’ is taken to refer to a specific part of the hull, perhaps where the hull tapers to the prow. Cf. meginhúfr lit. ‘main strake’ (the strongest strake in the hull) and róðrarhúfr ‘lit. ‘rowing-strake’ (the strake in the hull where the oarports were). According to LP: egghúfr, egg- might also refer to the oval shape of a ship’s hull (hence from ON egg n. ‘egg’), which is hardly appropriate in the present context. For elgr ‘elk’, see Note to ESk Lv 7/3.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. 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.
  3. Internal references
  4. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Lausavísur 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 169.

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