Note to Hfr ErfÓl 6I
[6] Gunnþinga jarnmunnum ‘of meetings of Gunnr <valkyrie> [BATTLES] ... by iron mouths’: Semantically there is little to choose between the reading of ms. A adopted in the Text above and Gunnþings/gunnþings á hjǫr þunnum, the reading of 54 and Bb, and the latter is preferred by some previous eds (Wisén 1886-9, I, 35; Skald, reading af for á). Gen. sg. Gunnþings ‘of the meeting of Gunnr <valkyrie> [BATTLE]’ is equivalent as a determinant to gen. pl. Gunnþinga, while á hjǫr þunnum ‘by/on thin blades’ takes the place of jarnmunnum ‘by iron mouths’. But the prep. á ‘on, in’, necessary to preserve scansion, is odd in context (occasioning Skald’s emendation to af ‘by’), and this combined with the parallel in Hókr Eirfl 7/4 for jarnmunnum (below) tips the balance in favour of A’s reading.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
- Internal references
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2012, ‘Halldórr ókristni, Eiríksflokkr 7’ 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. 482.