[4] malfeti (m.) ‘gravel-pacer’: Or mál-. The form and the meaning of the first element of this otherwise unattested cpd are unclear. Kock (NN §1078A; Skald) argues that the first component in malfeti is mǫl f. ‘gravel’, thus the meaning of the heiti might be ‘one treading the gravel’ (adopted in the present edn). Finnur Jónsson (LP: malmfeti), emends to malmfeti lit. ‘iron-pacer’ (perhaps referring to a shoed horse), but the evidence he adduces in support of that emendation, Steinunn Lv 2/6V, is inconclusive (the mss have the variants ‘malm-’ and ‘mal-’).
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Internal references
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 40 (Steinunn Refs (Dálks)dóttir, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1273.