Note to Eil Þdr 5^III

[1] vanir gangs ‘the ones accustomed to walking’: Þórr is a god who is frequently represented as walking, in particular when he is on his way through the land of the giants. In Hym 7, as well as in the myth of his journey to Útgarðaloki (Gylf, SnE 2005, 37), he leaves his goats behind and travels on foot to the giant’s home. A similar interpretation was considered by Kock (NN §§446, 2902E) and Reichardt (1948, 344, 346), who assume a cpd gangsvanir, which they translate as ‘accustomed to walking’, which could be a variant of gangtamr ‘ready to walk’ (describing horses in the Poetic Edda in Ghv 2/11 and Hamð 3/7). However, as Kiil (1956, 104) points out, there is no cpd with a gen. first element preceding ‑vanr that means ‘accustomed to’ anything. On that account this edn treats gangs vanir as two separate words. Furthermore, the words are written as distinct from one another in mss Tˣ and W. Here, gangr is translated as ‘walking’, whereas Kiil (1956, 104-5) assumed that it had the otherwise unattested meaning ‘way, trail’. Earlier unconvincing interpretations are Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s (1851, 7), who uses the variant ‑gagns from R and combines it with gunn- to form the cpd gunngagn ‘battle-victory’ with an awkward tmesis, and Finnur Jónsson’s interpretation (Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 379; Skj B), who takes gangs as a giant’s name and combines it with dreyra ‘blood’ (l. 4) to form a kenning for ‘river’; ‑vanir is then combined with gunn- (l. 2) in the cpd gunnvanir ‘battle-accustomed’, which results in a tripartite l. 1.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
5. Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
6. Kiil, Vilhelm. 1956. ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa’. ANF 71, 89-167.
7. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1948. ‘Die Thórsdrápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation’. PMLA 63, 329-91.
8. Internal references
9. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ 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=113> (accessed 23 April 2024)
10. Not published: do not cite ()
11. Not published: do not cite ()
12. Not published: do not cite ()