Note to Anon 732b 1^III

[4] votar nætr ‘wet nights’: The deciphered form votr (ms. ‘xptr’) is emended to restore line-length and provide concord with the f. acc. pl. nætr ‘nights’. Finnur Jónsson (1886a, 191; Skj B) originally adopted the older spelling vátar here, but the fourteenth-century form votar is required by the hálfhnept metre, in which the penultimate word in each line must be monosyllabic or consist of two short syllables. Kock (Skald; Metr. §29) emended votr nætr to an otherwise unattested cpd vátnætr, on the analogy of vátviðri ‘wet weather’, in spite of the shortness of the resultant line, and proposed that the -r in votr was introduced accidentally under the influence of the endings in the adjacent words, ‑sætrs and nætr. Kock’s intervention was scornfully rejected by Finnur Jónsson (1934a, 60), but his revision of vátar to vótar in his re-treatment of the stanza (adopting a form that would represent an intermediate stage in the sound-change vá > vo) is no more metrical than Kock’s neologism. The sense of the expression is ambiguous. Following the interpretation of hljótr hásætrs as ‘seafarer’ it may be read as a reflex of conventional poetic metaphors relating the hardship of a man’s separation from the woman he desires to the physical trials of a mariner lashed by cold waves and spray. Cf. also the hálfhnept stanza Bbreiðv Lv 6^V (Eb 30), in which Bjǫrn Breiðvíkingakappi contrasts his married lover’s bed with the vásbúð ‘hardship’, lit. ‘cold, wet lodgings’ (cf. CVC: vás ‘wetness, toil, fatigue from storm’) which he endures after he is lost in a blizzard on the return trip from a visit to her house. The effect of the reference to ‘wet nights’ in Anon 732b 1 is clearly derisive, however, and Finnur Jónsson (1886a, 191; 1934, 60) interprets the expression as a scathing allusion to the ‘tearful’ (grådfulle) nights experienced by the disappointed lover. In his final edn of the stanza, Finnur Jónsson (1934a, 60) argues that the phrase undermines the man’s masculinity further by implying that he ikke kan holde sit ‘vand’ ‘cannot hold his “water”’. A parallel charge is made in the stanza inscribed in twelfth- or thirteenth-century runes on the Årdal I runestick (Run N 344^VI), which pillories a man who languishes in lovesickness and stundum bleytir beð undir sér ‘sometimes wets his bed’ (NIyR IV, 129-30). It seems equally likely, however, that the expression is supposed to suggest repeated masturbation or involuntary nocturnal emissions, and ridicules the man’s sexual frustration and his lack of any satisfactory opportunity to demonstrate his virility after his rejection (cf. the identification in Gade 1989b, 61-2 of a wry reference to masturbation in the rowing imagery in Bjhít Lv 2^V (BjH 2)).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. Gade, Kari Ellen. 1989b. ‘Penile Puns: Personal Names and Phallic Symbols in Skaldic Poetry’. Essays in Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association 6, 57-67.
6. Finnur Jónsson. 1886a. ‘Lønskrift og lejlighedsoptegnelser fra et par islandske håndskrifter’. In Kålund et al. 1884-91, 185-94.
7. Metr. = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1933. ‘Ett kapitel nordisk metrik och textkritik’. ANF 49, 279-94.
8. Finnur Jónsson. 1934a. Tekstkritiske bemærkninger til skjaldekvad. Det kgl. danske videnskabernes selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 20.2. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard.
9. NIyR = Olsen, Magnus et al., eds. 1941-90. Norges innskrifter med de yngre runer. Norges indskrifter indtil reformationen. 2. afdeling. 6 vols. Oslo: Norsk historisk kjeldeskrift-institutt.
10. Internal references
11. Judy Quinn (ed.) 2022, ‘Eyrbyggja saga 30 (Bjǫrn Breiðvíkingakappi Ásbrandsson, Lausavísur 6)’ 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. 463.
12. Alison Finlay (ed.) 2022, ‘Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa 2 (Bjǫrn Hítdœlakappi Arngeirsson, Lausavísur 2)’ 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. 62.
13. Kate Heslop (ed.) 2022, ‘Eyrbyggja saga 4 (Þórarinn svarti máhlíðingr Þórólfsson, Máhlíðingavísur 2)’ 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. 417.
14. Jonathan Grove (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from AM 732 b 4° 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1248.