Note to Gríml Lv 3VIII (GrL 5)
[6] mellur Hrungnis ‘the female lovers of Hrungnir <giant> [GIANTESSES]’: The word mella is used as a giantess-heiti in several skaldic poems, as a determinant in kennings for Þórr or for giants, e.g.: dolgs mellu ‘of the enemy of the giantess [= Þórr]’ (Eyv Lv 8/7-8I); mellu mǫgfellandi ‘the feller of the kinsman of the giantess [(lit. ‘kinsman-feller of the giantess’) GIANT > = Þórr]’ (Steinunn Lv 2/3V). In the kenning mellur Hrungnis in this stanza and in mellu grams hellis ‘mella of the lord of the cave [GIANT > GIANTESS]’ (EGils Selv 14/4IV), however, mella is the base-word of a giantess-kenning and thus cannot itself have been understood to mean ‘giantess’; mella hellis grams is a designation for the sea-giantess Selkolla ‘Seal-Head’ (Meissner 398). Finnur Jónsson interprets mella in these two late instances as ‘female lover’ (LP: 1. mella). A passage in Flj ch. 5 (ÍF 11, 228) can be adduced to lend support to this interpretation: a giant refers to a human maiden he has abducted as his melluefni lit. ‘material for a mella’, by which he evidently means his future wife.
References
- Bibliography
- Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
- 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.
- ÍF 11 = Austfirðinga sǫgur. Ed. Jón Jóhannesson. 1950.
- Flj = Fljótsdæla saga.
- Internal references
- Not published: do not cite (EGils Selv 14IV)
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, Lausavísur 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. 226.
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 40 (Steinunn Refs (Dálks)dóttir, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1273.