Note to Bragi Rdr 5^III

[3-4] siglur segls naglfara, andvanar saums ‘the masts of the sail of the nail-studded one <ship’s planking> [SHIELD > WARRIORS], lacking nails’: The interpretation of this elaborate kenning has occasioned much debate (see Marold 1994c, 571-2 for a summary). Here it is understood that siglur ‘masts’ stands for a group of the Gothic warriors, who defend their injured leader by surrounding his bed. The phrase andvanar saums ‘lacking nails’ (saumr is a collective noun for ‘ship’s nails’) further defines what kind of ‘masts’ these are by indicating what they are not, i.e. they lack the kinds of nails that ships contain; they are mast-like, and so men. Bragi then extends the parallel between men and masts in a clever nýgerving when he calls the warriors ‘masts of the sail of the nail-studded one’, repeating his nautical and his nail analogy, with reference to naglfara < naglfari ‘something studded or decorated with nails’ (so Lie 1954). This cpd occurs in several other contexts: in þulur as a sword-heiti (Þul Sverða 8/4, SnE 1998, I, 120) or as a ship-heiti (Þul Skipa 1/7, SnE 1998, I, 127); in the shield-kenning borð naglfara ‘board of the nail-studded one’ (Ggnæv Frag 1/2-3), where naglfari may refer either to a sword (so SnE 1998, II, 361) or a ship (so Marold 1994c, 574-5); as the name of the husband of Night in Gylf (SnE 2005, 13) and (probably connected by Snorri with nagl ‘nail’ of the body by popular etymology) as the name of the ship Naglfar or Naglfari in which a company of fire-giants and monsters travel to oppose the gods at Ragnarǫk (SnE 2005, 50). Opinion is divided on whether Bragi is using naglfari in this kenning as a sword- or a ship-heiti, but Marold’s (1994c, 572-7) advocacy of a reference to ship’s planking fits better with the nautical imagery of the kenning, and has been adopted here. Kock (NN §2720) proposed a different syntactical arrangement, siglur naglfara, andvanar saums segls ‘masts of the nail-studded one <sword>, lacking a sewn sail’, taking saumr as ‘sewing’ rather than ‘nail(s)’, a sense which it appears to have only in the pl. (cf. Fritzner: saumr 2).

References

1. Bibliography
2. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
4. Lie, Hallvard. 1954. ‘Naglfar og Naglfari’. MM, 152-61. Rpt. in Lie 1982, 332-41.
5. Marold, Edith. 1994c. ‘“Nagellose Masten”. Die Sage von Hamðir und Sörli in der Ragnarsdrápa’. In Gísli Sigurðsson et al. 1994, II, 565-79.
6. Internal references
7. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=113> (accessed 19 April 2024)
9. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gamli gnævaðarskáld, Fragment 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. 190.
10. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Sverða heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 789. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3194> (accessed 19 April 2024)
11. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Skipa heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 861. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3208> (accessed 19 April 2024)