Note to Eil Þdr 2^III

[2] Þórr: Line 2 is short by one syllable, leading several eds to insert an alleged older form of the god’s name, Þóarr (Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 376) or Þonarr (Genzmer 1934, 71). Even before some of these publications, Lindroth (1916, 167-8) had rejected these conjectural earlier forms. His arguments were that the monosyllabic form Þórr cannot go back to Gmc *Þunaraʀ or *Þunuraʀ; rather, *Þunraʀ must be the underlying form (cf. also ANG §299.3). Only the West Germanic languages have a disyllabic form (cf. OE þunor or OHG Donar/Þonar). A further argument against a disyllabic form in Þdr is that the monosyllabic form is always used in the other stanzas of the poem. This argument is not as strong as the linguistic ones, however, since the poet could have used an older form for metrical reasons. Lindroth (ibid.) therefore attempts to repair the hypometrical line by supplying the trisyllabic gammaleið or gammleið Véorr. The former, gammaleið, violates the metre as it pushes the long-stemmed noun Þórr back to the fourth metrical position, which cannot accommodate a monosyllabic noun with a heavy root syllable. The latter conjecture, however, entails replacing Þórr (all mss) with Véorr, another name for Þórr. The present edn offers the solution described in the Note below.

References

1. Bibliography
2. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
3. Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
4. Genzmer, Felix. 1934. ‘Die ersten Gesätze der Thorsdrapa’. In [n. a.]. 1934. Studia Germanica tillägnade Ernst Albin Kock den 6 december 1934. Lund: Gleerup; Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1934, 59-73.
5. Lindroth, Hjalmar. 1916. ‘Om gudanamnet Tor’. NoB, 161-9.
6. Internal references
7. 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 7 May 2024)