Note to Sigv Erlfl 4I
[5, 6, 7] víðbotn varðkeri glyggs ‘the wide base of the guarding-vessel of the storm [SKY > EARTH]’: Varðkeri glyggs ‘guarding-vessel of the storm’ is a sky-kenning which acts as the determinant for víðbotn ‘wide base’, producing a circumlocution for ‘earth’ (cf. Egill Arkv 18/7-8V(Eg 114) á víðum botni vindkers ‘on the wide base of the wind-vessel [SKY > EARTH]’, and a further example in Meissner 87, where the present instance is regarded as uncertain). However, since -keri is in the dat. case, rather than gen., the construction should perhaps be regarded as kenning-like rather than a kenning. The dat. could be regarded (exceptionally) as poss., or else locative. An additional consideration is that víðbotn is very much a minority reading, though acceptable as the lectio difficilior in a context in which some scribes failed to understand the kenning and associated the word rather with the p. n. Bókn which has just been mentioned in the previous stanza.
References
- Bibliography
- Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 114 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Arinbjarnarkviða 18)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 356.