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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Anon Bjark 1III

[6] hǫfuð vina ‘friends’: Lit. ‘heads of friends’. Hǫfuð ‘head’ is used here in a circumlocutionary sense, based on the sense ‘person’ (cf. LP: hǫfuð 2). Saxo (Saxo 2005, I, 2, 7, 4, p. 170) has quisquis se regis amicum … fatetur ‘whoever would prove … that he is a friend to the king’. The Germanic leader was traditionally primus inter pares with his personal followers; cf. Green (1965, 106-7). It has been argued by Hofmann (1955, 94-5), and before him Kock (1921, 117), that the Old Norse use of vinr in the sense of a leader as friend to his followers and vice versa shows the influence of West Germanic usage; cf. the Old English Beowulf where wine ‘friend’ can refer either to the leader or his retainers.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
  3. Hofmann, Dietrich. 1955. Nordisch-englische Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit. BA 14. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
  4. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
  5. Green, D. H. 1965. The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words: Balder, Frô, Truhtin, Hêrro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  6. Kock, Ernst Albin. 1921. ‘Bidrag til eddatolkningen’. ANF 37, 1-135.
  7. Internal references
  8. Not published: do not cite ()

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