Note to Brúni Lv 1VIII (Ket 1)
[1] Hængr ‘Hœngr (“Salmon”)’: This cognomen means ‘male salmon’. Ketill acquires it when he kills a dragon by cutting it in two with his axe (Ket ch. 1, FSGJ 2, 153-5). Upon his return home he tells his father Hallbjǫrn that he cannot say where he found schools of fish but that he did hew asunder a male salmon (hœngr, hængr after c. 1250). Hallbjǫrn thinks so little of this report that he gives his son the cognomen hœngr ‘male salmon’. He indicates that Ketill is unable to judge the import of his discovery, since he regards salmon (dragons?) as ‘small fry’ (smáfiskar). Later, while on a fishing expedition with his father, Ketill kills an outlaw named Hœngr who has demanded that Ketill relinquish his large catch of fish to him. When Ketill returns to his father with the catch and relates the incident, Hallbjǫrn says that the name hœngr is well-chosen, since his son is obviously a keen hunter of ‘big fish’ (stórfiskar).
References
- Bibliography
- FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
- Internal references
- 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ketils saga hœngs’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 548. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=71> (accessed 25 April 2024)