Note to Þloft Glækv 9^I

[10] reginnagla ‘the sacred nail’: Regin n. pl. means ‘ruling, divine powers’, especially the heathen gods, and hence regin- can function as the first element in a cpd with the sense ‘sacred, divine, god-related, mighty’; the exact connotations here are unclear. The second element here, ‑nagla, could be either acc. pl. of the strong m. noun nagl ‘nail’ or acc./dat. sg. or acc. pl. of the weak m. noun nagli, also ‘nail’ (the prep. fyr ‘before’ can take either acc. or dat., depending on meaning). There are basically three alternatives as to the cpd’s meaning: (a) If reginnagla is sg. and figuratively refers to a person, then clearly the cpd is most likely to refer to the saint: Óláfr himself (so NN §2017; Magerøy 1948, 32-6; ÍF 27). Although the determinant máls bóka ‘of the language of books [LATIN]’ could point to the clergy, the reference to petitioning Óláfr in st. 9/1 points to him. (b) If reginnagla is pl., figuratively indicating people, it most probably refers to priests or clerics; so Finnur Jónsson (Hkr 1893-1901, IV; Skj B). (c) If reginnagla is pl., but through pars pro toto indicates a built structure, it could indicate the church altar or Óláfr’s shrine. The term reginnaglar occurs also in Eyrbyggja saga (ÍF 4, 8), where it refers to nails hammered into high-seat pillars in a temple: þar fyrir innan stóðu ǫndvegissúlurnar, ok váru þar í naglar; þeir hétu reginnaglar ‘inside there stood the high-seat pillars, and there were nails in them; they were called holy nails’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. ÍF 4 = Eyrbyggja saga. Ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson. 1935.
5. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
6. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Magerøy, Hallvard, ed. 1948. Glælognskviða av Toraren Lovtunge. Bidrag til nordisk filologi av stederende ved Universitet i Oslo 12. Oslo: Aschehoug.
8. Internal references
9. Kate Heslop 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Eyrbyggja saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 409-473. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10> (accessed 19 April 2024)