Note to Keth Lv 2VIII (Ket 3 [a])
[3] síðförull ‘travelling late’: The first part of this cpd is usually translated as ‘late’ (LP: síðfǫrull; Edd. Min. 146). Kock however argues that it means ‘far’ (FF §16) and adduces expressions such as OE sīde ond wīde ‘far and wide’. One could add that the Old Norse adj. síðr means ‘long’, although it refers to vertical rather than horizontal extension (LP: 1. síðr). In the context of the saga a word meaning ‘out late’ seems to contradict Gusi’s question to Ketill in Gusi Lv 3/1-2 (Ket 6): ‘Who is that on skis in the first part of the day (öndverðan dag) … ?’ However, a conventional scenario in which a traveller meets and is challenged by a supernaturally powerful being while driving through a forest in the evening has a close parallel in Bragi Troll 1III and Anon (SnE) 9III (cf. SnE 1998, I, 83-4).
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
- FF = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1922. Fornjermansk forskning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 18:1. Lund: Gleerup.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from Snorra Edda 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 519.
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, An exchange of verses between Bragi and a troll-woman 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 64.
- Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 6 (Gusi finnakonungr, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 557.