[2] austr ‘in the east’: Although austr can also refer to the Baltic, Russia, or even Byzantium, in skaldic verse Sweden remains the most common meaning (see e.g. Sigv AustvI, and see further Jesch 2001a, 89-90). The use of austr must cast doubt on Faulkes’s suggestion (SnE 1998, I, 219) that the stanza represents an incitement to invade Norway.
References
- Bibliography
- Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- R. D. Fulk 2012, ‘ Sigvatr Þórðarson, Austrfararvísur’ 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. 578. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1351> (accessed 19 April 2024)