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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Þul Bjarnar 1III

[5] bassi: Perhaps ‘little bear’. Other than in the present þula the heiti occurs as a second element of the poetic cpd valbassi m. ‘slaughter-bear’ (i.e. ‘boar’), a cpd not attested elsewhere (Þul Galtar l. 5). Bassi has parallels in ModSwed. dialects basse ‘boar’, OSwed., ODan. basse ‘wild boar’ (cf. ModNorw. basse ‘big and stout beast, big man, unruly person’), and ON bassi has been explained as a result of a confusion of two different words, namely, a diminutive of a term for ‘bear’ (cf. bersi or bessi ‘little bear’ in l. 1) and a term for ‘boar’, cf. OE bār, bǣr ‘boar’ (Björkman 1912, 275; AEW: bassi).

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
  3. Björkman, Erik. 1912. ‘Neuschwed. gosse “Knabe, Junge”, eine semasiologisch-methodologische Studie’. IF 30, 252-78.
  4. Internal references
  5. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Galtar heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 900. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3215> (accessed 26 April 2024)

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