Anon Heildr 5^VII

Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilags anda drápa 5’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 455-6.

text and translation

notes and context

[1-4]: Previous eds have had difficulty in interpreting rennir (l. 3). Sveinbjörn Egilsson (LP (1860): renna) takes it to be 3rd pers. sg. pres. indic. of renna ‘to run’. He construes frǫmuðr regns hátunnu ranns rennir vǫldum hǫlda her hugar skóg, faldit nógu aldini, and translates ornator cæli conserit hominem pectora, velata copioso semine ‘the adorner of heaven binds the hearts [lit. breasts] of men, producing a lot of seed’. This is unsatisfactory, since consero ‘to tie, join’ is not a close translation of renna, and skógr ‘forest’ (l. 2) is m. and cannot agree with faldit (l. 4), which Sveinbjörn takes to be adjectival, without emendation. Rydberg (1907, 45 n. 3) proposes that it is ‘natural’ to take the 3rd pers. sg. pres. form rennir and the p.p. faldit together as a periphrastic phrase, presumably identical in meaning with falda. He offers the examples of vinna in Has 51/7 (þótt menn vinni misgert ‘even though men had comitted sins’) and Anon Gyð 2/4, 8 (vann sier aflað frægðar ‘earned fame for himself’), and orka in Leið 29/3-4 (sterkr er engr svát orki aptrat dróttins krapti ‘no one is so strong as to be able to impede the Lord’s power’). As Kock (NN §2142) points out, the first two examples are not exact parallels, since vinna often functions as an auxiliary in certain constructions. Rydberg offers no evidence for the use of renna in parallel expressions elsewhere, and Fritzner: renna has no examples of such usage. Finnur Jónsson, who is followed by Kock, takes rennir to be a m. noun, base-word of a God-kenning rennir ranns hátunu regns ‘impeller of the house of the high-barrel of rain’. He emends B’s ‘fraumudr’ (l. 2) to framiðr, m. nom. sg. adj. ‘outstanding’, which qualifies the God-kenning. This edn agrees with Finnur in taking rennir as a m. sg. nom. noun, meaning ‘one who makes something run, a spurrer-on, impeller’, but adopts a normalized form of B’s ‘fraumudr’, frömuðr, m. ‘promoter, furtherer’ being construed with hölda (l. 1) to form a kenning for God or the Holy Spirit, frömuðr hölda ‘promoter of men’, which is in apposition to rennir ranns hátunu regns; cf. frömuðr ástar ‘promoter of love’ 1/3.

readings

• [2] h*ugar: haugar all
• [2] nógu: so 399a‑bˣ, BRydberg, BFJ, ‘nóg[...]’ B
• [3] hátunnu: so 399a‑bˣ, BRydberg, BFJ, ‘hatunn[...]’ B
• [4] faldið: so 399a‑bˣ, BRydberg, BFJ, ‘f[...]lldit’ B
• [5] æfa: æfi all
• [6, 7] grandar fremd: ‘gra[...]fre[...]’ B, ‘gran[...]frem[...]’ 399a‑bˣ, BRydberg, BFJ
• [7] né: en BRydberg

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

• AM 757 a 4° (B) — 10r/8 - 10r/10

  Ok völdum her, hölda,
  haugar skóg, frömuðr, †nóg[...]†,
  regns †hatunn[...]† rennir
  ranns, aldini †f[...]lldit†,
  því er illlífis æfi
  andvígr hiti †gra[...]fre[...]†
  — er í gipt — né grimdar
  greypr élreki steypir.

  Ok vo᷎ldum her ho᷎lda haugar skóg fraumudr nóg…regns hatunn… | renner rannz alldíne f…lldít þui er illífis efe annduígr híte gra…fre…er í gíppt | en grímmdar greypr elrekí steyper.

  (EB)

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• JS 399 a-b 4°x (399a-bx)

  Ok völdum her, hölda,
  haugar skóg, frömuðr, nógu,
  regns hátunnu rennir
  ranns, aldini faldið,
  því er illlífis æfi
  andvígr hiti †gran[...]frem[...]†
  — er í gipt — né grimdar
  greypr élreki steypir.

editions and texts