Anon (SnE) 1^III

This helmingr (Anon (SnE) 1) is preserved in mss R (main ms.), Tˣ, W, U and B of Skm (SnE) and it is anonymous in all mss. Finnur Jónsson (Skj) gives the date of composition as the tenth century, but the half-stanza cannot be dated with any certainty based on linguistic or metrical criteria; hence it can only be assigned to the terminus ante quem of SnE (1241).

Bæði ák til brúðar
bergjarls ok skip dverga
sollinn vind at senda
seinfyrnð gǫtu eina.

Ák bæði til, {sollinn vind {brúðar {bergjarls}}} ok {seinfyrnð skip dverga}, at senda eina gǫtu.

I have both, {my swollen wind {of the wife {of the mountain-jarl}}} [GIANT > GIANTESS > THOUGHT] and {the never-forgotten ships of dwarfs} [POEMS], to send in the same direction.

Mss: R(21v), Tˣ(22r), W(47), U(27r), B(4v) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Bæði: so W, U, B, ‘Teþi’ R, ‘bedi‑’ Tˣ;    ák (‘a ek’): ‘‑a’ Tˣ, er U;    brúðar: ‘broþr’ U    [2] ‑jarls: ‑hjarls B    [3] sollinn: sólar U

Editions: Skj AI, 183, Skj BI, 173, Skald I, 92, NN §1098; SnE 1848-87, I, 252-3, II, 308, 523, III, 14, SnE 1931, 94, SnE 1998, I, 14.

Context: The helmingr is cited as an illustration of kennings for ‘poetry’ of the type skip dverga ‘ship(s) of dwarfs’.

Notes: [1] ák … til ‘I have’: Following Skj B, this is taken as a verb-adv. collocation (eiga til ‘have’). Kock (NN §1098; Skald) construes it with brúðar (til brúðar ‘to the woman’), which is less likely (see the following Note). — [1-2, 3] sollinn vind brúðar bergjarls ‘my swollen wind of the wife of the mountain-jarl [GIANT > GIANTESS > THOUGHT]’: According to Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108), ‘thought, mind’ ought to be circumscribed as ‘wind of the giantess’: Huginn skal svá kenna at kalla vind trǫllkvinna ok rétt at nefna til hverja er vill ok svá at nefna jǫtnana eða kenna þá til konu eða móður eða dóttur þess ‘Thought shall be paraphrased in such a manner as to call it wind of troll-women, and it is correct to name whichever [troll-woman] one wants and also to name giants and qualify her [the troll-woman] as the wife or mother or daughter of that one’. The origin of this type of kenning is obscure. Kock (NN §1098; Skald) argues that, rather than til lit. ‘to’ (l. 1) being an adv., it is more natural to take it as a prep. with the object brúðar ‘wife, woman’ (at senda til brúðar ‘to send to the woman’). While that is certainly correct (we would not expect the adv. til in an unstressed position and a syntactic break before position 5), it forces Kock to construe the kenning as sollinn vind bergjarls ‘swollen wind of the mountain-jarl [GIANT > THOUGHT]’, in which the determinant is ‘giant’ rather than ‘giantess’. There is very little evidence, if any, for such a kenning (see Meissner 138-9), and the present edn therefore follows SnE 1848-87, Skj B and SnE 1998, II, 243, 263. — [2] skip dverga ‘ships of dwarfs [POEMS]’: For kennings of this type, in which ‘ship’ is explained as an ofljóst construction (líð is ‘strong beverage’ and lið is ‘ship, vessel’), see Meissner 428 and SnE 1998, I, 14. — [3] sollinn ‘swollen’: The p. p. of the strong verb svella ‘swell, increase’. Qualifying the base-word in the kenning for ‘thought’, it probably refers to the skald’s frame of mind, agitated by anger, love or pain. — [4] seinfyrnð ‘the never-forgotten’: Lit. ‘slowly grown old’. A hap. leg. from seinn ‘slow, late’ and *fyrna ‘grow old, age’ (cf. fyrnask ‘grow old, age, be forgotten’; see ShÞ Frag l. 1). — [4] eina gǫtu ‘in the same direction’: Lit. ‘on one road’, an acc. of place.

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. 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.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. 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.
7. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
8. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
9. Internal references
10. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
11. (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 23 April 2024)
12. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from Snorra Edda 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 512.
13. Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘ Skáldhelgi Þórðarson, Fragment’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 351. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1348> (accessed 23 April 2024)