Note to Bragi Rdr 11^III

[5-6] und kyrrar hurðir Hjarranda ‘beneath unwavering hurdles of Hjarrandi <= Óðinn> [SHIELDS]’: Lit. ‘beneath quiet hurdles of Hjarrandi’. In itself this kenning is unexceptional, and there are several others of this type in the corpus, where a shield is referred to as a ‘door’ (or similar) of Óðinn (cf. Meissner 167). There is also no doubt that the name Hjarrandi occurs as an Óðinn-heiti (Þul Óðins 4/5). The difficulty is that in several versions of the Hildr legend a figure named Hjarrandi (or the cognate form in other languages, such as OE Heorrenda, MHG Hôrant) plays a role in the narrative. In Snorri’s prose, too, Heðinn is named Hjarrandason, but this may be a rationalisation of something he did not understand in Bragi’s poem. The most important Old Norse witness here is RvHbreiðm Hl 45-6 which uses the question-and-answer form greppaminni ‘poets’ reminder’ to refer to the Hildr legend. There (st. 46/4, 8) we find the question hverr eggjaði styrjar? ‘who instigated the strife?’ and the answer Hjarrandi réð gunni ‘Hjarrandi caused the battle’. It is uncertain whether this text supports the idea of a separate male figure who took a major role in stirring up the fighting or whether these statements allude to Óðinn’s (rather than Hildr’s) role in it. The fact that the pers. n. Hjarrandi must form part of a shield-kenning here and cannot therefore refer to another human participant in the fight strongly suggests that the idea of a separate figure named Hjarrandi, whether father to Heðinn or in some other role, is probably secondary to the legend, at least in its Scandinavian versions, and may have developed out of an original role for Óðinn alongside Hildr as inciter of hostility. While it would be possible grammatically for Hjarranda (l. 6) to be construed with allr herr ‘all the army’ (l. 5), that would leave the kenning base-words kyrrar hurðir ‘unwavering hurdles’ (ll. 5, 6) without a determinant.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
3. Internal references
4. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Óðins nǫfn 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 741.
5. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill 45’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1053.