[7-8] hǫrðum leiki Hildar ‘the hard play of Hildr <valkyrie> [BATTLE]’: A conventional battle-kenning (cf. Edáð Banddr 3/6, 7I) but here highly appropriate in context, because it contrasts the ‘hard play’ of the valkyrie Hildr, personification of battle, in which men fight one another, with the soft play of the bed, where men and women engage in sexual intercourse (see also SnSt Ht 49 and Note to Vígf Lv 1/7I).
References
- Internal references
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Eyjólfr dáðaskáld, Bandadrápa 3’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 460.
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 49’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1158.
- Diana Whaley (ed.) 2012, ‘Vígfúss Víga-Glúmsson, Lausavísa 1’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 364.