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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Bragi Þórr 3III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Þórr’s fishing 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 49.

Bragi inn gamli BoddasonÞórr’s fishing
234

text and translation

Hamri fórsk í hœgri
hǫnd, þás allra landa,
œgir Ǫflugbarða,
endiseiðs of kenndi.

{Œgir Ǫflugbarða} fórsk hamri í hœgri hǫnd, þás of kenndi {endiseiðs allra landa}.
 
‘The terrifier of Ǫflugbarði <giant> [= Þórr] lifted the hammer in his right hand, when he recognised the boundary-saithe of all lands [= Miðgarðsormr].

notes and context

This helmingr, along with sts 2 and 4, is quoted in the section of Skm that exemplifies kennings for the god Þórr. It is introduced by the clause Svá kvað Bragi ‘Thus spoke Bragi’.

[3] Ǫflugbarða ‘of Ǫflugbarði <giant>’: Although unattested in poetry (while its f. counterpart Ǫflugbarða appears in a þula of names for troll-women, Þul Trollkvenna 4/1), this word is here understood as the name of a male giant (lit. ‘mightily bearded one’), which forms part of a kenning for Þórr as the conventional adversary of giants. Skj B and Skald emend to the f. noun ǫflugbǫrðu, though m. giant names ending in ‑barði exist (e.g. Þistilbarði lit. ‘thistle-bearded one’, Þul Jǫtna I 2/8). — [4] endiseiðs (gen. sg.) ‘the boundary-saithe’: Endiseiðs is gen. case following kenndi, a usage often found when something uncomfortable is being experienced (cf. LP: kenna 6). This cpd (the reading of W and U) is understood as the base-word of a kenning for the World Serpent, in which he is compared to a fish (seiðr ‘saithe’ or ‘coalfish’, Pollachius virens, cf. Þul Fiska 2/1 and Note there) that surrounds the circular earth; cf. EVald Þórr 3/2-3 seiðr jarðar ‘saithe of the earth’. Kock (NN §1412F) proposed that seiðr means ‘rope, cord’, but this sense is unattested in Old Norse. Ms. R’s endiskeiðs ‘boundary-course, track’ is possible but unlikely in context, as is ’s endiskíðs ‘boundary ski’.

readings

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.

editions and texts

Skj: Bragi enn gamli, 1. Ragnarsdrápa 15: AI, 3, BI, 3, Skald I, 2, NN §§218, 1412F, 3396B; SnE 1848-87, I, 256-7, II, 309, III, 16, SnE 1931, 95, SnE 1998, I, 15-16.

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