Note to Þjóð Haustl 20III
[2] ǫl-Gefjun ‘the ale-Gefjun <goddess> [WOMAN = Gróa]’: A standard woman-kenning, based on the concept that women serve ale, beer or mead to men (cf. Meissner 418). It is possible, however, that the name Gefjun would seem particularly appropriate as a base-word here, as Gefjun’s most notable exploit, her ploughing loose of the island of Sjælland from Sweden, involved some kind of deception, if not sorcery (cf. Bragi Frag 1 and Note to st. 2/6 above). Cf. ǫl-Gefn st. 11/2 and Note. Kock (NN §1918) proposes taking ǫl-Gefjun sára ‘the ale-Gefjun of wounds’ together, but, as Marold (1983, 174) observes, this would overdetermine the kenning since ‘the Gefjun of wounds’ would by itself be a good woman-kenning, as would ‘the ale-Gefjun’.
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.
- 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
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Fragments 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 54.