Note to Glúmr Gráf 4^I

[2, 4] gaf mǫrgum skǫldum slǫg gunnhǫrga ‘gave many poets strikers of battle-temples [SHIELDS > WEAPONS]’: Weapons were among the conventional rewards given to poets for their poetry; see, e.g., Hfr Lv 11^V (Hallfr 14), celebrating the gift of a sword from Óláfr Tryggvason. The kenning is unusual. Gunnhǫrg(a) ‘battle-temples’ belongs to a pattern well attested among shield-kennings (Meissner 170-1), but slǫg ‘strikers’ is the pl. of slag n., which is itself a heiti for a weapon, so that the tvíkent kenning ‘strikers of battle-temples’ assumed here appears somewhat overdetermined. The translation here, however, follows Reichardt’s suggestion (1928, 178) that slǫg gunnhǫrga functions effectively as a kenning, exploiting the relation of slǫg with slá ‘to strike’ to mean ‘weapons which strike shields’. (b) Kock (NN §256) takes gunnhǫrga ‘shields’ as acc. pl. rather than gen. pl., and hence a joint object, with slǫg ‘swords’, of gaf ‘gave’, in an unusual use of asyndetic parataxis (i.e. omission of a conj.). This is questioned by Reichardt (1928, 178). (c) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B takes slǫg ‘weapons’ as the object of fórsk undir ‘risked his life against’ (see Note to l. 1 fórsk undir), and construes gunnhǫrga alone as a shield-kenning.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
5. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
6. Internal references
7. Diana Whaley 2012, ‘(Biography of) Óláfr Tryggvason’ 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. 383.
8. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2022, ‘Hallfreðar saga 14 (Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson, Lausavísur 11)’ 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. 890.