Note to Ótt Óldr 5III
[4] óskvíf ‘chosen wife’: So mss R, Tˣ, C (the 744ˣ (B) variant ósvífr ‘bold, reckless’ must be a lectio facilior). Skj B emends to Óska víf (followed by Faulkes, SnE 1998 in his main text, but not in his notes or glossary: cf. SnE 1998, I, 100, 219, II, 370) to produce an ofljóst kenning for ‘land’. Óski is a name for Óðinn (see Þul Óðins 8/3 and Note there), and the wife of Óðinn is Jǫrð. Kock (Skald) retains the ms. reading óskvíf (see Kock, Metr. §27); the word is not discussed in NN). Óskvíf appears to mean ‘chosen, desired, beloved wife’, and is paralleled in skaldic verse by similar compounds such as óskamey ‘chosen girl’, óskkván ‘chosen wife’, óskmǫgr ‘chosen son’ (see LP; Fritzner additionally records óskbarn ‘chosen child’ and óskmær ‘chosen girl’ in prose; see also McKinnell 2005, 150-1). Óláfr’s óskvíf is Sweden.
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.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Metr. = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1933. ‘Ett kapitel nordisk metrik och textkritik’. ANF 49, 279-94.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- McKinnell, John. 2005. Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend. Cambridge: Brewer.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Óðins nǫfn 8’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 751.