Note to Ótt Hfl 17^I

[4] folds ‘of the land’: A problematic reading, though most mss (including the best ones) have it, since fold ‘land’ is f., with foldar as its usual gen. sg. (a) ÍF 27 suggests simply that folds is an irregular gen. sg. for foldar, of a type paralleled by some other f. nouns, though normally in compounds (e.g. hjálpsmaðr for usual hjálparmaðr ‘helper’: see CVC: hjálps-maðr); this solution is followed here since it respects the dominant ms. form. (b) Kock (NN §730; Skald) emends to foldar, even though this requires the deletion of the expletive particle of, in order to retain the requisite six syllables in the line. (c) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B adopts the reading fold, found in the relatively unauthoritative mss 325VII, Flat, and Tóm, and suggests that it combines with branda to form a cpd fold-branda ‘land-flames (of the hawk) [ARM > GOLD]’ whose elements are separated by a kind of reverse tmesis. However, as Kock notes, Finnur in LP is inconsistent, suggesting ifla fold-branda under lýta, but brandr ifla foldar under 1. brandr .

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.