Note to Þul Sverða 10III
[8] folk (n.) ‘army’: This is probably not a term for a part of a sword, and perhaps the implied meaning of this heiti is ‘sword’ (or it might be an error). It is difficult to explain the semantic development of folk ‘army, warriors’ > ‘sword’, which does not fit the common pattern of pars pro toto (for the discussion of this heiti, see Richardson 1975 and Faulkes in SnE 2007, 65 n. 60/8). Richardson and Faulkes believe that the compiler of the þula may have included this word in the list of sword-heiti owing to a misunderstanding of the line folk í dreyra ‘the army in blood’ in GunnLeif Merl I 66/6VIII, where folk most likely means ‘army’ and not ‘sword’. See also folk ‘war’ (Þul Orrostu 1/8).
References
- Bibliography
- Richardson, Peter. 1975. ‘On the Meaning of Old Icelandic folk’. Semasia 2, 261-70.
- SnE 2007 = Snorri Sturluson. 2007. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Orrostu heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 786.