[4] tjón þegna ‘the loss of the man’: (a) Tjón ‘loss, destruction’ normally takes the gen. of the person or thing lost (LP, Fritzner: tjón), and this phrase could refer to the death of Haraldr gráfeldr (as assumed in Skj B and this edn), with gen. pl. þegna ‘of men’ for gen. sg. ‘of the man’. (b) Þegn, however, seems inappropriately lowly as a designation of a king, and the sense here may be ‘the followers’ loss [of their lord]’ (so Kock, NN §254; Faulkes, SnE 1998, II, 433). A further possibility is a reference to all those who fell in battle.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- 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.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.