Note to Þul Hauks 1III
[1] harmr (m.) ‘sorrow’: This heiti could be the same word as harmr m. ‘grief, sorrow’ (see Note to Rv Lv 34/6); cf. tregi ‘grief’ in l. 2. Both harmr and tregi could be half-kennings for ‘hawk’ (cf. such kennings as gaglhati ‘gosling-hater’, l. 8 below, and gaglfár ‘gosling-danger’; Meissner 112). Harmr ‘Velfjorden’ is also the name of a Norwegian fjord in Þul Fjarða l. 3, where the name occurs together with Tregi (the latter p. n. has not been identified with any certainty). Alternatively, the word might refer to a tamed hawk (‘quiet’; so Falk 1925a, 242) from Gmc *herm-; cf. OHG ungahirmi ‘restless’, OE gehirman ‘rest, quit’. Holthausen’s (1942, 270) explanation, that the hawk-heiti harmr refers to the hawk’s piercing shriek and is related to the weak verb herma ‘repeat, relate’, is less plausible.
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.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1925a. ‘Die altnordischen Namen der Beizvögel’. In Germanica: Eduard Sievers zum 75. Geburtstage 25. November 1925. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer, 236-46.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Fjarða 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. 982. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3248> (accessed 27 April 2024)
- Judith Jesch (ed.) 2017, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl Kali Kolsson, Lausavísur 34’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 343.