[6] ristill (m.) ‘gentlewoman’: Like some other heiti for ‘woman’ in this list (svanni, svarri, sprakki and svarkr) the word is a m. noun. In Skm (SnE 1998, I, 107), ristill is a term for a woman ‘of independent character’ (skǫruglyndr). Other than in this stanza and in Rþ 25/6 the word occurs in Old Norse poetry only twice and only in late poems, the earliest from C14th (see Anon Mey 27/3VII; see also Kommentar III, 590). The heiti is used quite frequently in the rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: ristill). The origin of ristill is obscure and several explanations have been suggested: from rist f. ‘instep of the foot’ (AEW: ristill 2); from the strong verb rísta ‘carve’, and thus a female rune carver (so Sturtevant 1952, 1151); from the strong verb rísa ‘rise’ (ÍO: ristill 3).
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- 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.
- ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
- Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Sturtevant, Albert Morey. 1952. ‘Etymological Comments on Certain Old Norse Proper Names in the Eddas’. PMLA 67, 1145-62.
- Internal references
- (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 26 April 2024)
- Kirsten Wolf (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilagra meyja drápa 27’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 908-9.
- Not published: do not cite ()