[4] borg Kantara ‘Canterbury’: The ASC (s. a. 1011) records the capture of Canterbury by Þorkell’s army, including the martyrdom of Archbishop Ælfheah there, about which Óttarr and Sigvatr are silent, to judge from the extant poetry. The p. n. (OE Cantwaraburh ‘the stronghold of the Cantware, people of Kent’) has been slightly remodelled by Norse speakers, poetry and prose having alternative forms, and, here and in Sigv Víkv 8/6, the metre has encouraged mild tmesis for metrical reasons. See further Townend (1998, 46-9).
References
- Bibliography
- ASC [Anglo-Saxon Chronicle] = Plummer, Charles and John Earle, eds. 1892-9. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1952.
- Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
- Internal references
- Judith Jesch (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Víkingarvísur 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. 545.