Þul Sáðs 2^III

Grjón ok valbygg,         gróska, dumba,
hveiti, hirsi,         hjalmr, skrúf ok mjǫl,
bendill, heslar,         bundin, sáðkorn,
flúr, ǫmstr, þrefi,         frækorn, gnjóði.

Grjón ok valbygg, gróska, dumba, hveiti, hirsi, hjalmr, skrúf ok mjǫl, bendill, heslar, bundin, sáðkorn, flúr, ǫmstr, þrefi, frækorn, gnjóði.

Groats and Welsh barley, vegetation, bran, wheat, millet, rick, haystack and meal, sheaf-band, hazels, bunch, seed-corn, flour, stack, thrave, grain of seed, chaff.

Mss: A(21v) (SnE)

Editions: Skj AI, 690, Skj BI, 680, Skald I, 344; SnE 1848-87, II, 493.

Notes: [All]: Aside from grjón n. pl. ‘groats’, valbygg n. ‘Welsh barley’ (l. 1), hveiti m. ‘wheat’ (l. 3), mjǫl n. ‘meal’ (l. 4) and flúr n. ‘flour’ (l. 7), none of the heiti for ‘grain’ listed in this stanza is otherwise attested in Old Norse poetry, although bundin ‘bunch’ (l. 6) appears in the rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: bundin). Some of the latter (gróska f. ‘vegetation’, dumba f. ‘bran’ l. 2; hirsi m. ‘millet’ l. 3; bendill m. ‘sheaf-band’ l. 5; ǫmstr m. ‘stack’, þrefi m. ‘thrave’ l. 7) do not occur in other Old Norse sources although they are preserved in Modern Icelandic or in other Modern Scandinavian languages. — [1] valbygg (n.) ‘Welsh barley’: I.e. Frankish or foreign barley. The word occurs in HHund II 3/4 (cf. S-G II, 107). — [4] skrúf (n.) ‘haystack’: For this word, see AEW: skrúf. — [5] heslar ‘hazels’: From hesli n. ‘hazel’, but here the form is either m. or f. pl., which is unusual. It is difficult to explain why ‘hazel’ is mentioned in the þula of Sáðs heiti, unless it implies that the nuts could be ground and used as flour (cf. mjǫl ‘meal’ l. 4 and flúr ‘flour’ l. 7). — [7] þrefi (m.) ‘thrave’: A measure of straw or fodder, i.e. two stocks of corn containing twelve sheaves each; cf. ModNorw. treve ‘twenty-four sheaves’. — [8] gnjóði (m.) ‘chaff’: A hap. leg. Cf. New Norw. njode, njoe ‘chaff’. According to ÍO: gnjóði, the word is related to gnauð f. ‘rustling noise’ and the weak verb gnyðja ‘mutter, grumble’, from Gmc *gneu-þ- ‘rub’; hence the original meaning may have been ‘ground, something smashed, crumb’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
5. Finnur Jónsson. 1926-8. Ordbog til de af samfund til udg. af gml. nord. litteratur udgivne Rímur samt til de af Dr. O. Jiriczek udgivne Bósarímur. SUGNL 51. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
6. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
7. S-G = Gering, Hugo. 1927-31. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. Nach dem Tode des Verfassers herausgegeben von B. Sijmons. I: Götterlieder. II: Heldenlieder. Halle: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.
8. Internal references
9. Not published: do not cite ()