Note to Arn Þorfdr 19^II

[5, 6] sleit blôu tjaldi ‘wore to shreds the dark awnings’: (a) Slíta ‘tear, break’ usually governs an acc. object, but it is also used in the sense ‘wear out’ with a dat. object denoting some kind of clothing or footwear. Jesch (2001a, 164-5) suggests that tjald here, as in Arn Hryn 16/4, refers to a sail. She points out that a sail is more likely than awnings to have been worn out at sea and that sails are described as ‘blue, dark’ in Sigv Knútdr 8/2^I bl segl; reference to a sail would also be consonant with the probable reference to a mast in l. 8 (líma). (b) An attractive alternative would be to take slíta tjǫldum as a phrase synonymous with bregða tjǫldum ‘strike tents/take down awnings’ and related idioms. Clearing a ship of its awnings would be a pregnant action: a necessary preliminary to a battle or a great voyage (cf. ÞjóðA Har 2), but slíta tjǫldum/tjaldi does not appear to have been used in this sense. (c) Björn Magnússon Ólsen (1909a, 299) suggested that sætt ‘truce, peace’ in l. 2 is carried over into the second helmingr and understood as object to allvaldr sleit ‘the mighty ruler tore’ in l. 5, but this seems improbable, especially since there is no trace of such a linkage between the two helmingar in any other st. by Arnórr.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
3. Björn Magnússon Ólsen. 1909a. ‘Om nogle vers af Arnórr jarlaskáld’. ANF 25, 289-302.
4. Internal references
5. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Hrynhenda, Magnússdrápa 16’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 202-3.
6. Matthew Townend (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Knútsdrápa 8’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 659.
7. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Stanzas about Haraldr Sigurðarson’s leiðangr 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 151-2.