Note to Þloft Tøgdr 6^I

[7, 8] døkksali dals svana ‘the dark halls of the dale of swans [SEA]’: As can be seen from the Readings, scribes made various attempts to make sense of this difficult phrase. (a) The solution adopted here is based on that of Kock (NN §1792; Skald), who assumes (reasonably) that njótr ‘enjoyer’ (l. 4) is the subject of gaf ‘gave’ in both ll. 1 and 5, and suggests emendation to acc. pl. sali rather than the gen. sg. ‑ar or gen. pl. ‑a implied by the mss. This gives døkksali dals svana ‘dark halls of the dale of swans’, where dalr svana is a satisfactory kenning for ‘sea’, and the phrase is thus in apposition with Danmǫrk, and according to Kock offers a description of the country’s ‘forest-covered islands in the sea’ (skogbevuxna öarna i havet). For a similarly unusual description of the land, see Gsind Hákdr 3/3. A possible variation on this analysis would be to prefer the reading in djúp- rather than døkk-, as djúpr ‘deep’ is used in Akv 14/2 (NK 242), as an adj. for an aristocratic residence. (b) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; LP: døkksalr) emends this cpd to dagvélir, in which the first element is ‘day, sun’ and the second ‘enticer, destroyer’, hence ‘destroyer of the sun of the dale of swans [SEA > GOLD > GENEROUS MAN = Knútr]’; this nom. case kenning can then act as the subject of the verb gaf. (c) Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson in ÍF 27, striving to avoid emendation, suggests an ingenious solution which, however, he readily admits is a ‘desperate interpretation’ (örþrifaskýring).

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
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. 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.
6. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
8. Internal references
9. Not published: do not cite ()
10. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Guthormr sindri, Hákonardrápa 3’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 161.