Note to Þjóð Haustl 9III
[5] bekkjar Brunnakrs ‘to the bench of Brunnakr (“Spring-field”)’: Here understood to be a place in Jǫtunheimar, where Loki took Iðunn. Bekkjar must then be construed as a gen. of direction (cf. NS §152 and NN §1017), and Brunnakr, lit. ‘Spring-field’, an otherwise unknown place, the name suggesting fertility. Other scholars (e.g. Skj B; LP: Brunnakr) combine this phrase with dísi lit. ‘the dís’ (or ‘lady’, see Note to l. 6 below) to produce a kenning for Iðunn ‘the dís of Brunnakr’s bench’. Marold (1983, 162-4) opts for the homonym bekkr ‘brook’, and understands the kenning for Iðunn as ‘the gods’ lady of the brook of Brunnakr’, but the close similarity in meaning between bekkr ‘brook’ and brunnr ‘spring, well’ perhaps calls this interpretation into doubt, although Marold argues (on the basis of the tmesis of Iðunn’s name in st. 10/3, 4) that Þjóðólfr must have understood a connection between this goddess and water (unnr ‘wave’).
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
- Marold, Edith. 1983. Kenningkunst: Ein Beitrag zu einer Poetik der Skaldendichtung. Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker, new ser. 80. Berlin: de Gruyter.