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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Gestumbl Heiðr 35VIII (Heiðr 82)

[3] blóðshol* ‘a blood vessel’: Lit. ‘blood’s hole’. The homonym æðr, given in the solution, means both ‘eider duck’ and ‘blood vessel’, but the scribes do not seem to have understood this pun. The main ms. reads ‘bloþ̄ holld’, which Skj and, following Finnur Jónsson, FSGJ, expand to blóðugt ‘bloody’ (as did Petersen and Thorarensen in 1847) giving ‘bloody flesh’, only loosely synonymous with ‘vein’. The H redaction has blóðs hold ‘flesh of blood(?)’. The emendation to blóðshol, which is tentatively adopted here, was first suggested in Rafn et al. 1850-2, I, 189 n. 7. It is accepted in Heiðr 1873, 261, Edd. Min., Skald and Heiðr 1960 among others, although the word is not otherwise attested in Old Norse. The interpretation of Anon Gát 1/5III relies on the same pun on æðr; a similar play on words occurs in Anon (FoGT) 20/5-6III.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  3. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
  4. 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.
  5. Heiðr 1960 = Tolkien, Christopher, ed. and trans. 1960. Saga Heiðreks konungs ins vitra / The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise. Nelson Icelandic Texts. London etc.: Nelson.
  6. Heiðr 1873 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1873. Hervarar saga ok Heidreks. Det Norske oldskriftselskabs samlinger 17. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger.
  7. Internal references
  8. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ 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=34> (accessed 26 April 2024)
  9. Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Gátur 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 632.

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