Note to Anon Hafl 1III
[3] málsgengi ‘support for the case’: Both readings málfengi (W) and málsgengi (A) are hap. leg.; further, the second elements of both these compounds are both normally n., which does not explain Óláfr’s comment on the change of gender. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (LP (1860): málfengi) translates the former as dubium, forte loquacitas, garrulitas ‘uncertain, perhaps verbosity, talkativeness’, and suggests (loc. cit.) that málsgengi in A was used for m. *málsgangr ‘progress of the case’, clarifying Óláfr’s comment about the change of gender. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 185) argued against this, giving instead the interpretation of málsgengi adopted in the present edn, procesfølge ‘support for the case’. Finnur Jónsson preferred W’s málfengi, suggesting the skald substituted the n. -fengi for the m. -fengr ‘advantage, benefit’.
References
- Bibliography
- TGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
- LP (1860) = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1860. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Copenhagen: Societas Regia antiquariorum septentrionalium.