Note to ESk Lv 13^III

[5] fljótum félaga ‘its swift companion’: The identity of this swift companion is debated. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 292) construed fljótum félaga fróns ‘the swift companion of the earth’, i.e. ‘the moon’, and took prýði (m. acc. sg.) ‘adorner’ (l. 6) as a half-kenning for ‘sun’. Finnur Jónsson (LP: félagi) interpreted fljótum félaga ‘swift companion’ as ‘earth’ and prýði (m. acc. sg.) fróns ‘adorner of the earth’ as ‘moon’. Kock (NN §2343) correctly pointed out that it makes little sense to regard the earth as the moon’s ‘swift companion’. He accordingly emended to fljótan félaga (m. acc. sg.) and took prýði as the f. dat. sg. ‘adornment’ to reverse the imagery: ‘I know that the swift companion (i.e. the moon) serves the adornment of the earth (i.e. the sun) well’. That emendation goes against the ms. witnesses and is unnecessary. The idea that the orbit of the moon is faster than that of the sun is in perfect accordance with ancient and medieval cosmological treatises and with the phenomenon called saltus lunae ‘the moon’s leap’, and Einarr must have been familiar with this concept (see Clunies Ross and Gade 2012, 205-6).

References

1. Bibliography
2. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. 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.
4. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.