[3-4] und fornan legg fletbjarnar ‘under the old leg of the bench-bear [HOUSE > PILLAR]’: This periphrasis is a nýgerving with the house-kenning ‘bench-bear’ as the determinant. Houses are sometimes referred to in kennings as animals (Meissner 430); in this case the base-word is ‘bear’, cf. fletvargr ‘bench-wolf’ (Anon (FoGT) 4/4). The resulting nýgerving means ‘pillar’, drawing on the analogy between an animal’s foot and the pillar of a house. The attributive adj. forn ‘old’ probably reflects the notion that giants were very old (Schulz 2004, 60-1; see Note to st. 15/7, 8 above); hence their age carried over to the objects associated with them.
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- Schulz, Katja. 2004. Riesen: Von Wissenshütern und Wildnisbewohnern in Edda und Saga. Skandinavistische Arbeiten 20. Heidelberg: Winter.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 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. 577.