[2, 3] rǫdd Ála ‘the voice of Áli <sea-king> [GOLD]’: A kenning for ‘gold’ formed against the mythological background indicated by Snorri’s prose text. Áli is elsewhere given as the name for a variety of supernatural beings and humans of the prehistoric period (cf. LP: Áli; SnE 1998, II, 443). Connection with a sea-king of this name (cf. SnE 1998, I, 109 and Note to Þul Sækonunga 1/2) seems most likely here. Kock (NN §222) argues that ála is gen. pl. of áll ‘deep narrow channel in sea or river’ and that undirkúlu ála ‘under-knob of channels’ is a kenning concealing the name Steinn ‘Stone’ for Bragi’s unnamed friend.
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.
- 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.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sækonunga heiti 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. 678.