Note to Anon Leið 7VII
[5] bók* ‘book’: It is not possible to use B’s and 624’s reading ‘becks’. Although bekkr ‘bench’ may be compounded with expressions for the sea in ship-kennings (as, for example, in SnSt Ht 75/2III: hafbekkr ‘sea-bench’), the man-kenning viðir bekks byrskíðs ‘trees of the bench of the wind-ski’, which seems to be the only possible arrangement, would be tautologous: byrskíð ‘wind-ski’ is already an acceptable ship-kenning. Kock (NN §3248) suggests that þá (l. 5), interpreted as an adv., should be construed with síðan (l. 6), but even this arrangement does not solve the problem of ‘becks’, since it would leave réðu (l. 5) without an object. With Rydberg and Finnur Jónsson this edn adopts Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s emendation to bók*, understood as a reference to the Sunday Letter, and qualified by the adj. ritna ‘written’ (l. 8).
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Internal references
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 75’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1186.