Note to Anon Gyð 2^VII

[5, 7] Hlies fúrbrigðir ‘Hlér’s fire-spreader [GOLD > GENEROUS MAN]’: B is badly torn, and most of the first word of l. 7 (fol. 14v, l. 14) is lost. Initial <h> is confirmed by the alliterative pattern. Rydberg reads the last two letters ‘e᷎s’, interpreting hræs gen. sg. of n. hræ ‘carrion, scraps’. A diacritic of some kind is visible, but it might just as well be an accent as a hook. Similarly, fúrbrigðir suffers from manuscript cracking and wearing, but the second letter is <u>, not, as Rydberg reads it, <a> or <y> (so BFJ). Brigðir is an acceptable base-word in a man-kenning with determinant meaning ‘gold’ or something similar. This edn follows Skj B in adopting Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s suggested reconstruction (made in a note to 444ˣ) of the first word of l. 7 to Hlies (earlier Hlés), gen. sg. of Hlér m. which is given as an alternative name for Ægir, a sea-god, in the opening l. of Skm (SnE 1998, I, 1). ‘Hlér’s fire’ thus becomes a gold-kenning on a familiar ‘fire of the sea-god’ pattern (Meissner, 225). Rydberg’s prose arrangement reconstructs the man-kenning fárbrigðir hræs ‘drawer of the enemy of the corpse, drawer of the sword’.

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. 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.
4. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
5. Internal references
6. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 20 April 2024)