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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to Eil Þdr 15III

[2] fylvingum hallvallar ‘by the nuts of the sloping-plain [MOUNTAINS > STONES]’: On hallvallar, see Note to l. 2 hallvallar. The main difficulty in the second line is fylvingum: unlike most earlier eds, the present edn takes this as dat. pl. of fylving f. ‘nut’ (Skm, SnE 1848-87, II, 430, 514; possibly also GSúrs Lv 5/3V (Gísl 7)). Like epli ‘apple’, korn ‘grain’, bygg ‘barley’ etc., fylving ‘nut’ is a suitable base-word in a stone-kenning (cf. Meissner 90); hence, the entire second line can be interpreted as a kenning for ‘stone’. Kiil (1956, 143), who also assumes tmesis in fylvingum hallvallar, interprets this unconvincingly as a kenning for ‘eyes’. Most other eds take fylvingr to mean ‘sword’ (Þul Sverða 7/1) and try to bring it in line with Snorri’s narrative in Skm. Kock (NN §462, followed by Reichardt 1948, 375-6) suggests that fylvingr means ‘staff’ here, and he interprets hallfylvingum vallar as ‘with the tilting staffs of the plain’. The meaning ‘staff’ is not supported by the etymology of fylvingr (NN §348), and there is no reason why these proposed staffs should be tilting or their meaning should be more closely determined by vallar ‘of the plain’. Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 394) retains the meaning ‘sword’ and assumes that Þórr and Þjálfi were stabbing at the giantesses with swords (trôðusk hôm fylvingum ‘they were trampled by the tall swords’).

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
  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. 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, Skáldskaparmál’ 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=112> (accessed 19 March 2024)
  10. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 802.
  11. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2022, ‘Gísla saga Súrssonar 7 (Gísli Súrsson, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 557.

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