Note to Þul Elds 2^III

[6] vélann, fasti ‘deceiver, fire’: It is impossible to say whether this is a cpd or two separate heiti. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; LP: vélanfasti) suggests vélanfasti lit. ‘fraudulent fire’, an otherwise unattested cpd. That interpretation is dubious for two reasons. First of all, vél f. ‘fraud’ normally has the form véla- when used as the first element in compounds (cf. vélaverk ‘bad trick’, vélakaup ‘fraudulent bargain’; see CVC: vél). Second, it would be natural to expect that fasti m., which is frequently used by the skalds as a poetic term for ‘fire’, should be listed as a separate heiti in Þul Elds. In RE 1665, these are treated as two separate words and not listed adjacently. Taken as an isolated word, the first heiti might be a derivation either from vél ‘treason, trick’ (vélann m. ‘deceiver, trickster’; cf. þjóðann ‘sovereign’, Þul Konunga 2/8, Herjan(n), Þul Óðins 2/5) or from vél/væl ‘wailing’ (vélann ‘wailer’). The sense ‘noisemaker’ would be paralleled in such fire-heiti as olgr ‘noise-maker’ (st. 3/1) and dunsuðr ‘thunderer’ (st. 4/5).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. 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.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. Internal references
6. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Konunga heiti 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 689.
7. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Óðins nǫfn 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 735.
8. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Elds 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. 920. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3234> (accessed 23 April 2024)