Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Note to Hfr Hákdr 8III

[1] breiðleita ‘broad-faced’: This epithet, otherwise unattested in poetry, probably suggests the expanse of Hákon’s realm (LP: breiðleitr). It seems nowhere else to be applied to a female being (ONP: breiðleitr); contra Steinsland (1991, 124) it is not used of giants, male or female. This disjunctiveness, albeit mild in comparison to the ‘hair/foliage’ epithets in sts 5 and 7, like them hints that the subject is not an ordinary human or divine woman. Frank’s (1978, 64) suggestion that Jǫrð is portrayed here as a ‘broadfaced peasant girl’ is not convincing; the stereotyped female peasants in 10 and 13, for example, are quite different, and the epithet is always used positively.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. 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.
  3. Steinsland, Gro. 1991. Det hellige bryllup og norrøn kongeideologi. En analyse av hierogami-myten i Skírnismál, Ynglingatal, Háleygjatal og Hyndluljóð. Oslo: Solum.
  4. Internal references
  5. Not published: do not cite ()

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close