Note to Anon Líkn 2^VII

[2] heiðs algöfugr ‘of clear-heaven ... completely noble’: Despite Kock’s effort (NN §1385) to maintain the ms. reading (heiðr algöfugs), there seems to be no way around the need to emend l. 2. Kock’s construction depends upon 1) an otherwise unattested sense of heiðr ‘glory’ as bistånd ‘assistance’, 2) inverting the acc. and gen. objects in the idiom at beiða e-n e-s ‘to ask someone for something’, and 3) mixing weak and strong adjectives following the def. art. (ins hæsta, göfugs). Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1844, 35 n. (supported by Konráð Gíslason 1877, 23 n.) proposed heiðtjalls (i.e. -tjalds ‘-tent’) for B’s ‘heiðr al’; so Rydberg 1907, 47 and Skj B. While this, with the end of l. 1, would be analogous to ins hæsta hríðtjalds in Has 28/1-2, a C12th drápa from which Líkn draws various details, it is unlikely that the poet would use exactly the same sky-kenning twice (cf. heiðtjalds 25/4). A ‘king of heaven’-kenning can be achieved less radically by emending heiðr to heiðs ‘of the (highest) clear-heaven’. (An alternative would be heiðrs ‘of (the highest) glory’; i.e. rex summae gloriae.) Emendation of algöfugs ‘completely noble’ to nom. algöfugr (Skj B göfugr), while less essential, seems justified to avoid apposition of weak and strong adjs following ins ‘the’, but also by the marginal appropriateness of algöfugs as a modifier of ‘sky’.

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. Rydberg, Hugo, ed. 1907. ‘Die geistlichen Drápur und Dróttkvættfragmente des Cod. AM 757 4to.’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Lund. Copenhagen: Møller.
5. Konráð Gíslason. 1877. Om helrim i förste og tredje linie af regelmæssigt ‘dróttkvætt’ og ‘hrynhenda’. Indbydelsesskrift til Kjøbenhavns universitets aarsfest til erindring om kirkens reformation. Copenhagen: Schultz.
6. Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1844. Fjøgur gømul kvæði. Boðsrit til að hlusta á þá opinberu yfirheyrslu í Bessastaða Skóla þann 22-29 mai 1844. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla. Bessastaðir: Helgi Helgason.
7. Internal references
8. 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Droplaugarsona saga’ 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, pp. 136-150. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=24> (accessed 26 April 2024)
9. George S. Tate 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Líknarbraut’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 228-86. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1024> (accessed 26 April 2024)
10. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 28’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 97.