[2] folkstafns ‘of the battle-stem [SWORD]’: Finnur Jónsson interprets this as a shield-kenning (LP: folkstafn, and so ÍF 35), but this seems unlikely both because folk meaning ‘sword’ is at best extremely rare (LP: folk 4; Þul Sverða 10/8III) and because the base-word of shield-kennings usually denotes a broad, flat object, while stafn is ‘stem’, e.g. of a ship. Meissner 169 allows either ‘shield’ or ‘sword’ as the kenning’s referent.
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- 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.
- ÍF 35 = Danakonunga sǫgur. Ed. Bjarni Guðnason. 1982.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 10’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 808.