Note to Eil Þdr 23III
[1, 3-4] sáð orða Sónar ‘the seed of the words of Són <mythical vat> [POETRY]’: This is a kenning for ‘poetry’, as the determinant Són makes clear. In Snorri’s account, Són was one of the three vats in which the giant Suttungr stored the mead of poetry (Skm, SnE 1998, I, 4). The kenning is a nýgerving, whose base-word sáð ‘seed’ is prompted by the verb grœr ‘grows’ (l. 2). Skj B combines orða ‘words’ with sefreinu to form a kenning for ‘tongue’; LP: sefrein later changes this referent to ‘breast’. Because sefrein ‘mind-land’ already means ‘breast’, orða is superfluous here, however. Equally superfluous is the determinant Sónar ‘of Són’ in Kock’s (NN §441) sefrein Sónar, which he translates as Sons strand ‘Són’s beach’. It may be easiest to combine orða with sáð Sónar to give ‘words’-seed of Són’, even if orða is superfluous here.
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.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- (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 8 May 2024)