Note to ESk Hardr II 2^II

[3] brýns (m. gen. sg.): Lit. ‘of speediness’. Taken here as a substantivised adj. (see LP: brýnn 2) governed by kostr ‘possibility’ (l. 2) (so also ÍF 28; ÍF 29). Skj B adopts the 42ˣ variant brúns (the word is difficult to read in Mork) and construes it as part of a kenning for ‘ship’: skrautum brúns hás ‘for the ships of the brown oarlock’ (ll. 3, 4). However, skrauti itself appears to mean ‘ship’. See LP: skrauti, and Scröter, the name of Erik’s ship in Saxo (2005, I, 5, 2, 3, pp. 286-7) (most likely from skraut ‘adornment’). Kock (NN §2535) takes brúns as a name (Brúnn) for Óðinn (or for a sea-king). He suggests the following reading: vara kostr háskrautum fara braut Brúns ‘it was no possibility for the tall ships to go on the road of Brúnn (i.e. on the sea)’. Brúnn (and Brúni) is a name for Óðinn (see LP: Brúnn; Brúni), but it is not attested as the name of a sea-king. It is difficult to see how ‘the road of Óðinn’ could be construed as a kenning for ‘sea’. The prose of Hkr reads as follows (ÍF 28, 286): Magnús konungr gekk út á skip sitt, en þeim var engi kostr brot at fara ‘King Magnús went out onto his ship, but there was no possibility for them to sail away’.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
6. ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
7. Internal references
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=4> (accessed 26 April 2024)