Note to Þul Øxar 1III
[1-2]: Skj B and Skald render these lines as Øx, jarðhyrna | ok járnsparða ‘Axe, earth-horn and iron-axe’. The long-line is defective in both main groups of mss. In l. 1 in A and B, Øx is followed by the heiti jarðhyrna ‘earth-horn’, and R, C have jarðsparða ‘earth-axe’. Ms. Tˣ and the LaufE mss give járnsparða ‘iron-axe’, as in the present edn. Line 2 is defective in all mss. Mss R, Tˣ, C and the LaufE mss have hyrna ‘horn, corner of an axe’, which leaves the line hypometrical without alliteration, and the line is omitted in A and B (but cf. hyrna in jarðhyrna in the previous line in these mss). The compounds járn-(jarð)sparða and jarðhyrna appear to have been confused at an early point in the ms. transmission owing to the similarity of their first elements. Both terms are required to produce a regular line, however, and because Tˣ agrees with the LaufE mss here (perhaps from a no-longer extant ms.), the order járnsparða, jarðhyrna has been adopted in the present edn.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ 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=10928> (accessed 25 April 2024)