Note to ESk Geisl 3VII
[1] siðar ‘faith’: This edn, with Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Kock (Skald; NN §2315), reads this as the gen. sg. of the noun siðr ‘religious practice, faith’ and construes: Ljósi sólar heilags siðar brá ‘The light of the sun of holy faith was extinguished’. Another possibility is to read the first word with a long ‘i’, síðar, the comp. form of the adv. síð, with the sense Síðar brá sólar ljósi ‘Later, the light of the sun [= Christ] was destroyed’. Síðar is then a reference to the preceding st., and its initial position in st. 3 may suggest that it is meant as a transition between the two. For this reading, see Chase 2005, 53 and 127. The long form, síðar, is unmetrical, however, as resolution is required in position one to avoid a hypermetrical l.
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Chase, Martin, ed. 2005. Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli. A Critical Edition. Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic Studies 1. Toronto, Buffalo and London: Toronto University Press.