Note to Anon Heildr 13VII
[1, 3, 4] hreinn fingr hægri handar sólar salkonungs ‘pure finger of the right hand of the king of the hall of the sun [SKY/HEAVEN > = God]’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) emends to salkonungr ‘hall-king’ (nom. sg.) (l. 1), taking the st. as an apostrophe to the first person of the Trinity. He construes Sólar salkonungr, þinn hreinn fingr hægri handar er frami gipta sjauskiptr ‘King of the hall of the sun, the pure finger of your right hand is the sevenfold distinction of good fortunes’. The Lat. here, as elsewhere, is vocative, and B’s text can be retained as a straightforward calque on dextrae Dei tu digitus. The God-kenning salkonungr sólar ‘king of the hall of the sun’ recurs in Leið 25/7, and is probably modelled on salkonungr himna ‘king of the hall of the heavens’ in Geisl 66/6 (see Note on Leið 13/5-8).
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.
- Internal references
- Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Leiðarvísan 13’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 152-3.
- Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Leiðarvísan 25’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 163-4.
- Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Geisli 66’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 60-1.