Note to Arn Hryn 10II
[4] ok ‘and’: (a) The reading ok (so E, J2ˣ, H, Hr, Flat) gives good sense, linking lypting ‘after-deck’ (l. 1) with stýri skeiðar ‘warship’s helm’ (l. 4), also in the stern, so that the two complete the cl. ljótu lauðri dreif á ‘foul surf surged against’. Ok stýri skeiðar could be alternatively taken with it rauða goll bifðisk ‘the red gold shuddered’ (l. 2), but ‘helm’ and ‘gold’ are a rather ill-assorted pair. (b) The variant um stýri skeiðar (so Kˣ, 39, F) would also work: ljótu lauðri dreif útan á lypting um stýri skeiðar ‘foul surf surged in against the after-deck around the helm of the warship’. (c) It is also conceivable that stýri skeiðar is acc. sg. of a kenning referring to Magnús as seafarer (so Fms 12, 131). ‘Agent noun’ kennings with stýrir as base-word and ‘ship’ as determinant are recorded: see LP: stýrir.
References
- Bibliography
- Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
- 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.