Note to Hókr Eirfl 3I
[3-4] tungl tangar tingla ‘moons of the tongs of prow-boards [SHIELDS]’: This is clearly a shield-kenning, but the exact meaning of tǫng tingla ‘the tongs of prow-boards’ is debated. Tingl ‘prow-boards’ were two boards at the prow of a ship, which could be engraved or decorated (see Gsind Hákdr 2/3, Jór Send 4/3, Note to Þhorn Harkv 7/8 and Jesch 2001a, 148-9). The ‘tongs’ of these plates could have been the wooden pieces that surrounded the prow-boards (see Falk 1912, 43-4; Jesch 2001a, 148). The rhyming and alliterating words tungl and tingl are also found in Jór Send 4/3.
References
- Bibliography
- Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1912. Altnordisches Seewesen. Wörter und Sachen 4. Heidelberg: Winter.
- Internal references
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Guthormr sindri, Hákonardrápa 2’ 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. 159.
- Judith Jesch (ed.) 2012, ‘Jórunn skáldmær, Sendibítr 4’ 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. 148.
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Þorbjǫrn hornklofi, Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál) 7’ 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. 100.