Þul Manna 5^III

Folk ok fylki,         fundr, almenning;
nú es þrǫng ok þyss,         þorp, auðskatar,
drótt ok syrvar,         dúnn, prýðimenn,
sǫgn ok samnaðr,         seta, stertimenn,
fjǫrr ok brjónar.

Folk ok fylki, fundr, almenning; nú es þrǫng ok þyss, þorp, auðskatar, drótt ok syrvar, dúnn, prýðimenn, sǫgn ok samnaðr, seta, stertimenn, fjǫrr ok brjónar.

Folk and county, assembly, the public; now there is throng and crowd, bunch, wealth-skatar, retinue and warriors, band, splendid men, crew and gathering, garrison, finely dressed men, being and brjónar.

Mss: R(42v), Tˣ(44v), C(11v), A(18r-v), B(8v), 744ˣ(64v-65r) (SnE)

Readings: [2] almenning: almenningr seta sóknarar ok snyrtimenn C, almenningr A, B    [3] nú: om. A;    þrǫng: ‘þro[…]’ B, ‘þrong’ 744ˣ    [5] syrvar: ‘sví[…]’ B, ‘suírar’ 744ˣ    [6] dúnn: dyn C, ‘[…]’ B, ‘dunn’ 744ˣ;    prýðimenn: ‘[…]ry᷎dí menn’ B, ‘prýdí menn’ 744ˣ    [9] fjǫrr ok brjónar: om. A, B

Editions: Skj AI, 660, Skj BI, 662, Skald I, 326; SnE 1848-87, I, 559-60, II, 475, 558, 618, SnE 1931, 199, SnE 1998, I, 116-17.

Notes: [All]: Of the eighteen heiti for ‘men’ listed in this stanza, only five, almenning ‘the public’ (l. 2), þyss ‘crowd’ (lit. ‘tumult’, l. 3), auðskatar ‘wealth-skatar’ (l. 4), fjǫrr ‘being’ (l. 9) and brjónar (l. 9), are not found in the corresponding section of Skm (SnE 1998, I, 106). Some heiti have already been mentioned in sts 2-3 (drótt ‘retinue’, st. 2/5 and sagnir ‘crews’, st. 3/4). — [2] almenning (f.) ‘the public’: Only the m. variant of this word is used in poetry. — [4] þorp (n.) ‘bunch’: The word is not used in this sense in Old Norse except in the present þula and in the list of heiti for ‘man’ in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 106-7: þorp ef þrír ró ‘þorp if they are three’); but cf. the weak verb þyrpast ‘crowd’. The relation between this heiti for ‘men’ and þorp ‘hamlet, village’ is disputed. According to de Vries (AEW: þorp 2), þorp ‘bunch’ is a homonym of þorp ‘village’ with the same etymology. — [4] auðskatar ‘wealth-skatar’: Ms. C adds a long-line after this verse (seta, sóknarar | ok snyrtimenn), which seems to be the last in this stanza, because the next line in C starts with a capital letter (Nú ‘Now’). The first and the last heiti in that additional line appear in sts 5/8 and 4/3 respectively, whereas the heiti sóknarar ‘attackers(?)’ (perhaps from sókn f. ‘attack, battle’) is not attested elsewhere. — [5] syrvar ‘warriors’: This is a variant of sǫrvar, the pl. form of Sǫrvi (lit. ‘armed one’; cf. OE sierwan ‘equip, arm’), which is the name of a sea-king (Þul Sækonunga 5/6). The word is found only in poetry. — [6] dúnn (m.) ‘band’: This word is not otherwise used in poetry. — [6] prýðimenn (m. pl.) ‘splendid men’: This cpd is not otherwise attested in skaldic poetry, but it is found in the rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: prýðimaðr). — [8] seta (f.) ‘garrison’: This word is not otherwise used in poetry. — [8] stertimenn ‘finely dressed men’: The heiti may be derived from a term for ‘fine dress’, sterta (e.g. hosnasterta ‘court-breeches’; see CVC: sterta). Cf. also stertr ‘stately, haughty’ (p. p. of the weak verb sterta ‘bolster up, straighten up’; hence translated as ‘coxcombs’ in Faulkes 1987, 158). The word is mentioned in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 106) as well, but it is never found in poetry. — [9] fjǫrr ok brjónar ‘being and brjónar’: This defective line is added to the stanza in several mss (R, Tˣ, C). Both heiti are found only in this þula. The first is probably derived from fjǫr n. ‘life’ (hence lit. ‘being’; see Kock, NN §696), although Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 274) argues that fjǫrr m. may be a name of a tree (‘fir(?)’) and thus a half-kenning. The etymology of the second heiti, brjónar, is obscure. It has been suggested that the word may be related to the weak verb brjá ‘glitter’ and has the meaning ‘splendid’, but de Vries finds that unlikely (see the discussions in AEW: brjónar and ÍO: brjónar).

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
6. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Faulkes, Anthony, trans. 1987. Snorri Sturluson. Edda. Everyman’s Library. London and Rutland, Vermont: J. M. Dent & Sons and Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc. Rpt. with new chronology and synopsis 2005.
8. 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.
9. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
10. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
11. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. Internal references
13. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 2 May 2024)
14. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sækonunga heiti 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 685.