Note to OBarr Frag 1III
[1] drógar Draupnis ‘of the drawing of Draupnir <mythical ring> [GOLD]’: The noun dróg occurs only here as a simplex and in the compounds almdróg (Gsind Hákdr 71I) and ýdróg (Hfr Óldr 6/5I), both meaning ‘bow-string’. The noun plausibly derives from the verb draga ‘draw, pull’ and means ‘that which is drawn’. It has been understood here (cf. LP: dróg) to mean ‘the drawing, i.e. that which is drawn’ from Draupnir, that is, gold. Draupnir (lit. ‘dripper’) was Óðinn’s gold arm-ring, which had been forged for him by some dwarfs. According to Gylf (SnE 2005, 47) it had the property that every ninth night there dripped from it eight gold rings of the same weight. An alternative interpretation is that dróg could mean ‘band, string’, as in the two compounds above; this would then form the base-word of a ring-kenning. Kock (NN §1895) proposed for dróg the meaning ‘that on which something is drawn’, and understood dróg Draupnis as a kenning for the arm (cf. Meissner 419-20).
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.
- 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.
- 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 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- (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 25 April 2024)
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Guthormr sindri, Hákonardrápa 7’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 166.
- Diana Whaley (ed.) 2012, ‘Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson, Óláfsdrápa 6’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 398.