Note to Eil Þdr 3^III

[8] Mó Endils ‘the Mór <horse> of Endill <sea-king> [SHIP]’: This edn deviates (with Kock NN §1080; Genzmer 1928, 310; Kiil 1956, 102) from other eds (Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 378; Skj B; Reichardt 1948, 343) in making Endill the determinant of the horse-heiti Mór. For Mór as a horse-name, cf. Þul Hesta 3/8, Anon Þorgþ I 1/7 and Anon Kálfv 2/3. The second part of the stanza is then not about climbing mountains or wading through a river, but about Þórr and his companion boarding a ship (or wading through the sea, see below). This corresponds to the prose narratives of this myth (see Introduction above) according to which giants are approached by sea (cf. Kiil 1956, 103). On his way to Jǫtunheimar visiting Útgarðaloki, Þórr crosses a deep sea (Gylf, SnE 2005, 37), and comparable stories about underworld journeys to Geirrøðr, such as those of Thorkillus (Saxo 2005, I, 8, 14, 1-20, pp. 560-73) and Þorsteinn bæjarmagn (FSGJ IV, 329), also lead across the sea. The kenning ‘Scots of Gandvík’ in st. 2/6 above fits this pattern as well. It locates the giants, who are the target of this journey, near the White Sea, or north of it, as on the Skálholt map (see Note to st. 2/6). Numerous eds have interpreted mó as ‘land’. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1851, 24) combines it with Endils to form a kenning for ‘mountain’ (‘land of the giant’). Endill is recorded exclusively as the name of a sea-king, however, and never as a giant-name; hence the kenning mó Endils can only mean ‘sea’ and not ‘mountain’. Kock (NN §1080) takes the kenning to mean ‘stretch of water’, i.e. the river that Þórr and his companion must wade across (so also Genzmer 1928, 310). Names of sea-kings, however, are never determinants in river-kennings (Meissner 99-100). If one wanted to keep mó Endils as a sea-kenning, the rest of the helmingr, namely spenndu gaupnum ilja ‘they clasped with the palms of their foot-soles’, would imply that Þórr and his companion would have walked on or perhaps waded through the sea. There are several instances where Þórr wades through water; most comparable is perhaps the end of the fishing contest in Hym st. 27 and in Gylf (SnE 2005, 45). Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 378; Skj B, followed by Reichardt 1948, 343 and Davidson 1983, 574, 578) therefore avoids a kenning, translating mó simply as ‘earth, heath’. He combines Endils and halla gallópnis ‘halls of the shrill-crier [MOUNTAINS]’ into a giant-kenning, and this in turn with mantælendr (emended from manntælendr) into a kenning for Þórr and his companions (on this see Note to ll. 6-7 above). In light of all these difficulties, the present edn interprets mó as the horse-name Mór, combined with Endils to form a ship-kenning.

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. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
5. Davidson, Daphne L. 1983. ‘Earl Hákon and his Poets’. D. Phil. thesis. Oxford.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
8. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
9. Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
10. Kiil, Vilhelm. 1956. ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa’. ANF 71, 89-167.
11. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1948. ‘Die Thórsdrápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation’. PMLA 63, 329-91.
12. Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 1851. Tvö brot af Haustlaung og Þórsdrápa. Reykjavík: Prentað á kostnað skólasjóðsins.
13. Genzmer, Felix. 1928a. ‘Zwei angebliche Fälle von Wortspaltung’. ANF 44, 305-11.
14. Internal references
15. (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 20 April 2024)
16. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Kálfsvísa 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 666.
17. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Hesta heiti 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 937.
18. Not published: do not cite ()