[1] herðar ‘the shoulders’: The emendation (so Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 384; Skj B; NN §449; Reichardt 1948, 352) is necessary because herðr ‘shoulder’, a f. jō-stem, has the ending ‑ar in acc. pl. Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 307) tries to avoid emendation by combining herðir ‘the hardener, promoter’ with hallands, which he interprets as ‘whetstone-land’ (ibid., 300), a kenning for ‘sword’. Herðir hallands ‘the sword-impeller’ would then be a warrior-kenning for Þórr. However, hallr is not attested in the meaning ‘whetstone’, which is always called hein. As a consequence, Faulkes (ibid., 302) is forced to interpret harðvaxnar as a noun, ‘mightily grown, swollen’, designating the rivers.
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
- Reichardt, Konstantin. 1948. ‘Die Thórsdrápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation’. PMLA 63, 329-91.