Note to Þjóð Haustl 19III
[3] í mœni hjarna ‘into the roof-ridge of his brain [SKULL]’: The determinant of this unusual kenning is not certain; both R and Tˣ have the meaningless ‘hinka’, while W has ‘hina’. The emendation to hjarna ‘brain’, based on W’s reading and assuming that the scribe failed to copy a superscript ‘ar’ abbreviation in his exemplar, has been adopted by all eds. It is possible, as Marold (1983, 174) has suggested, that W’s ‘hina’ might have stood for hinna, a rare word, meaning a membrane or skin, otherwise used in poetry only in the C14th Anon Pét 4/6VII. The base-word mœnir means the ridge of a roof, and is used here pars pro toto for ‘roof’.
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- Internal references
- David McDougall (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Pétrsdrápa 4’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 799-800.