Note to Ormr Woman 4III
[4] nisting ‘stitching’: This word occurs five times, only here in poetry, and always in the sense of ‘stitching, sewing’ (LP, Fritzner: nisting; cf. citations in ONP: nisting). The extended sense ‘garment’ posited uniquely for this stanza by Sveinbjörn Egilsson (LP (1860): nisting), followed by Guðbrandur Vigfússon (CPB II, 323) and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B, LP: nisting), is not warranted, since fǫt ‘garments’ can be envisaged as undergoing ‘stitching’ or ‘sewing’ to adapt them to fit the dead woman, perhaps by way of being ‘taken in’ or ‘gathered’. The case of nisting is dat. (instrumental), indicating the manner in which or means by which the corpse is conveyed into the fǫt. In previous eds it is taken as the dat. object of slǫng (ms. A). Such flexionless dat. forms start to supplant older forms in -u in the C11th or 12th (Finnur Jónsson 1901, 40-1; ANG §376).
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- 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.
- LP (1860) = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1860. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Copenhagen: Societas Regia antiquariorum septentrionalium.
- ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
- CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1901. Det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog omtr. 800-1300. SUGNL 28. Copenhagen: Møller.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.