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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Eil Þdr 8III

[6-7] snerriblóð Mǫrnar ‘the rushing blood of Mǫrn <female mythical being> [RIVER]’: It is clear from the context of the stanza that snerriblóð Mǫrnar must refer to the river Þórr wades across. Because Mǫrn is attested both as a river-name and as the name of a giantess (see Note to l. 6), Clunies Ross (1978b, 302 n. 41; 1981, 373) arrives at a compromise that the present edn adopts as well. She explains the duality river/giantess by assuming that Þdr maintains ‘a delicate modulation between the attribution of anthropomorphic qualities to the river itself and clear statements that one or more giantesses had been responsible for causing the stream to become turbulent’ (Clunies Ross 1981, 373). She further attributes this to an early Scandinavian thought pattern ‘which conceived rivers as essentially female features of the landscape and thus described them in terms of human female effluvia’ (ibid.). Hence, Mǫrn could be a river as well as the blood of a mythical being. Aside from the possible explanation as menstrual blood (Kiil 1956, 118; see also st. 5/4 with an interpretation different from Kiil’s), blood can also flow within the body, however, as the kenning type ‘blood of the earth [RIVER]’ (Meissner 99-100) shows. The duality between river and the blood of a mythical being is illustrated by a stanza by Þórðr Særeksson (ÞSjár Frag 4/2, 3, 4), which alludes to stormy seas as follows: en eymylvir spýtir blóði systra ‘and the island-grinder [MAELSTROM] spits out the sisters’ blood [WATER]’. These sisters are the waves, daughters of the sea-giant Ægir, and their blood is ‘water’. Ægir’s daughters exhibit precisely the same duality between a natural phenomenon (waves) and a mythical being (see Introduction above). All Indo-European peoples had river deities, i.e. rivers they regarded as deities and worshipped as such (Maringer 1974). Ganges (Indian), Achelous (Greek), Tiberius (Roman) and Rhenos (Celtic) were among the names associated with these dual entities. The river Marne is another example; its name derives from Matrona (Pokorny 1959, 701).

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. 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.
  3. Clunies Ross, Margaret. 1978b. ‘Style and Authorial Presence in Skaldic Mythological Poetry’. SBVS 20, 276-304.
  4. Clunies Ross, Margaret. 1981. ‘An Interpretation of the Myth of Þórr’s Encounter with Geirrøðr and his Daughters’. In Dronke et al. 1981, 370-91.
  5. Pokorny, Julius. 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke.
  6. Kiil, Vilhelm. 1956. ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa’. ANF 71, 89-167.
  7. Maringer, Johannes. 1974. ‘Flußopfer und Flußverehrung in vorgeschichtlicher Zeit’. Germania 52, 309-18.
  8. Internal references
  9. Edith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2017, ‘ Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 68. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1170> (accessed 29 March 2024)
  10. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Þórðr Særeksson (Sjáreksson), Fragments 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 480.

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