Note to Bragi Rdr 2^III

[1, 2, 3, 4] ins gjalla baugnafaðs hjóls meyjar Hǫgna ‘the resounding boss-hubbed wheel of the maid of Hǫgni <legendary king> [= Hildr > SHIELD]’: This extended kenning, like that in st. 1, includes an adjectival element formed from a p. p., baugnafaðr ‘boss-hubbed’ (from baugr ‘boss, circle’ and nǫf ‘nave, hub’), that both continues and draws attention to the analogy between a shield and a wheel that forms the basis of the kenning. This adj. is a hap. leg. and caused the scribes difficulty. A second adj., gjallr ‘ringing, resounding’, has a similar effect, as it can apply both to the noise of a cart-wheel turning and the striking of weapons on the metal boss of a wooden shield. Hǫgni was the father of Hildr, a valkyrie-like figure central to the story of the Everlasting Battle (Hjaðningavíg) that forms the subject of Rdr 9-12 (q. v.). In skaldic poetry Hildr may be a proper name (and thus the basis of a woman- or valkyrie-kenning), but carries with it some semantic resonance from its meaning as the common noun hildr ‘battle’.

References

1. Internal references
2. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 41.