Note to Snæbj Lv 1III
[6, 8] líðmeldr Amlóða ‘the ale-flour of Amlóði <legendary hero> [SAND]’: This kenning alludes to a legend told by Saxo (Saxo 2005, I, 3, 6, 1-25, pp. 221-35). According to this legend, Amlethus (Hamlet) feigns insanity to avoid being killed by his uncle, Fengo, after Fengo has killed Amlethus’s father. But his adversaries are suspicious and repeatedly attempt to demonstrate that he is in fact perfectly sane. At one point they show him sand on the beach and call it flour, whereupon Amlethus responds that it had been ground by the storms (Saxo 2005, I, 3, 6, 10, p. 222). Sand can thus also be called the ‘flour of Amlóði’.