[4] hvergi moldar ‘anywhere on earth’: Lit. ‘nowhere of earth’: A well attested usage, for the syntax of which see Fritzner: hvergi adv. 3; CVC, LP: hvergi. The line is so construed in Skj B. In Bret 1848-9, by contrast, hvergi moldar appears to be interpreted as ‘nowhere in the firmament’, but that is unlikely in view of the standard senses of mold ‘earth’. Merl 2012 takes a radically different approach, construing hvergi as equivalent to hverrgi ‘no one’, taken as subject of má ‘can’, but a phrase hver[r]gi moldar, translated as keiner auf der Erde ‘no one on Earth’, is not otherwise attested.
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.
- 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.
- CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.