Note to Hfr Hákdr 5III
[4] biðkvôn ‘waiting wife’: Óðinn may have abandoned his wife Jǫrð for the goddess Frigg, although this is not stated explicitly in Old Norse sources. The skald apparently pictures Jǫrð as awaiting (in vain) Óðinn’s return, and thus all the more ripe for Hákon to seduce. Bið- could alternatively be from biðja ‘woo, court, propose to’ rather than bíða ‘wait’, as Kock (NN §§1911B, 1955) argues. The phrase would then mean ‘wooed woman’, and suggest that Hákon actively desires Jǫrð/Norway. There are no other Old Norse compounds with bið- from biðja as the first element, however, but compounds with bið- from bíða are rather common. Bifkvôn ‘trembling wife’, the reading of R, spoils the hending with Þriðja; Faulkes’s (SnE 1998, I, 158) suggestion that it refers to a volcanic landscape is attractive but as he admits, applies better to Iceland than to Norway.
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.