Note to Bjǫrn Lv 1^VIII (Frið 9)

[7-8]: The interpretation of these lines is uncertain. The first word or words of l. 7 have not been authoritatively explained, and most eds emend, following the B redaction, to either bilar sterka arma ‘[my] strong arms fail’ (Frið 1901, 21) or bilar styrk arma ‘the strength of my arms fails’ (Skj B). The prose of the B text endorses the notion that baling the ship is hard work for the men’s arms. Relying on the A text, Wenz (Frið 1914, 13) has bilskorð arma but does not explain what it may mean. All known compounds in which -skorð ‘prop, support’ is the second element are women-kennings in which the first element denotes either ornament or clothing (cf. LP: skorð). Hence the bil- of the cpd’s first element is anomalous, as the word’s normal meaning is ‘delay, moment’. Edd. Min. emends to bálskorð ‘fire-prop’, which, together with arma ‘of arms’, can be understood as an inverted, two-part woman-kenning, ‘prop of the fire of arms’ [GOLD > WOMAN]’. This seems the only feasible interpretation of the A mss’ readings, and has been adopted here. Kock (Skald; NN §1474) has Bil skortir arma, in which Bil is a goddess-heiti (cf. LP: Bil) and skortir is an emendation, depending on 27ˣ’s reading ‘skortt’, with the second <t> supposedly mistaken by the scribe for an <ir> abbreviation. Kock does not, however, explain what he thinks ll. 7-8 mean in this interpretation. In this edn the woman-kenning arma bálskorð is taken as a direct address to a woman, and the speaker complains of his miserable situation, not taking a warm bath, but being buffeted by salty seas, which are stinging his eyes. With Skj B, l. 8 is understood as an impersonal construction, bítr mér í hvarma, lit. ‘it bites me on the eyelids, my eyes are stinging [with the salt sea]’. The alternative is to take the kenning (?) of l. 7 as the subject of the verb bítr ‘bites’ (l. 8), ‘the woman bites me on the eyelids’, but the scenario conjured up by this interpretation is either ludicrous or improbable, unless one imagines the hostile sea-deity Rán as the kenning referent (cf. Frið 11/5-6).

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
7. Frið 1901 = Larsson, Ludvig, ed. 1901. Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna. ASB 9. Halle: Niemeyer.
8. Frið 1914 = Wenz, Gustaf, ed. 1914. Die Friðþjófssaga in ihrer Überlieferung untersucht und der ältesten Fassung kritisch herausgegeben. Halle: Niemeyer.
9. Internal references
10. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna 11 (Friðþjófr Þorsteinsson, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 208.