Anon (FoGT) 12^III

Vatn kalla mig
— vil eg efla þig,
hoddveitir — frams
hauðrfjörnis grams:
eg hreinsa alt;
eg vermi kalt;
eg birti sjón;
eg bæti tjón.

Kalla mig vatn {frams grams {hauðrfjörnis}}; eg vil efla þig, {hoddveitir}: eg hreinsa alt; eg vermi kalt; eg birti sjón; eg bæti tjón.

I call myself water {of the outstanding king {of the earth-helmet}} [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)]; I want to strengthen you, {gold-giver} [GENEROUS MAN]: I cleanse everything; I warm what is cold; I brighten vision; I repair loss.

Mss: W(112) (FoGT)

Readings: [3] hodd‑: hodd‑ corrected from hold in scribal hand W

Editions: Skj AII, 163-4, Skj BII, 180, Skald II, 94, NN §2585; SnE 1848-87, II, 200-1, III, 156, FoGT 1884, 125, 254, FoGT 2004, 35, 63, 99, FoGT 2014, 10-11, 66-7.

Context: Stanza 12 illustrates the second kind of prosopopoeia, when something lifeless addresses something living. After the stanza the following explanation is given: her er sagt at ǫlmvsv giǫfín kalli sik vatn kristz, ok telr vpp dygðer sinar, eggiandi manninn til milldinnar, þviat sva sem vatnit slǫkver likamlegan elld, slikt hið sama slokkver ǫlmosan synda brvna ok þvær ꜳ þꜳ̋ leið sꜳ̋l, sem vatnit bv́kinn ‘here it is said that Alms-giving calls herself the water of Christ, and enumerates her virtues, urging the man to mercy, because, just as the water quenches bodily fire, in the same way alms quenches the fire of sins and washes the soul in that [same] way as the water [does] the body’.

Notes: [All]: The metre of this stanza is a variety of runhent ‘end-rhymed’, with tetrasyllabic lines (fornyrðislag Type E) rhyming in pairs. — [1] kalla mig ‘I call myself’: So translated here in view of the sense of the prose commentary, even though one would expect köllumz for ‘I call myself’. Two other interpretations of l. 1 are also possible, ‘they call me water’ and ‘call me water’; cf. FoGT 1884, 254 n. 1. Compare a very similar enumeration of the qualities of a poet and a troll-woman, respectively, in Bragi Troll and Anon (SnE) 9, where the first lines begin Skald kalla mik ‘They call me poet’ and Troll kalla mik ‘They call me troll’. — [3-4] frams grams hauðrfjörnis ‘of the outstanding king of the earth-helmet [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)]’: Cf. Anon Líkn 19/6, 7, 8^VII hreinn siklingr hauðrfjörnis ‘pure king of earth’s helmet [SKY/HEAVEN > = God (= Christ)]’.

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. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
6. FoGT 2004 = Longo, Michele, ed. [2004]. ‘Il Quarto Trattato Grammaticale Islandese: Testo, Traduzione e Commento’. Dottorato di Ricerca in ‘Linguistica Sincronica e Diacronica’ (XV Ciclo). Palermo: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.
7. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. Internal references
9. George S. Tate (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Líknarbraut 19’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 250.
10. Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Bragi inn gamli Boddason, An exchange of verses between Bragi and a troll-woman’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 63. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1131> (accessed 28 April 2024)
11. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from Snorra Edda 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 519.