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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Bragi Þórr 2III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Þórr’s fishing 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 48.

Bragi inn gamli BoddasonÞórr’s fishing
123

text and translation

Vaðr lá Viðris arfa
vilgi slakr, es rakðisk,
á Eynæfis ǫndri,
Jǫrmungandr at sandi.

Vaðr {arfa Viðris} lá vilgi slakr á {ǫndri Eynæfis}, es Jǫrmungandr rakðisk at sandi.
 
‘The fishing line of Viðrir’s <= Óðinn’s> heir [= Þórr] lay not at all slack on the ski of Eynæfir <sea-king> [SHIP], when Jǫrmungandr <= Miðgarðsormr> unwound himself on the sand.

notes and context

This helmingr, along with sts 3 and 4, are quoted in the section of Skm that deals with kennings for the god Þórr. Stanza 2 is introduced by the clause Svá kvað Bragi skáld ‘Thus spoke Bragi the poet’.

Both Skj and Skald place this helmingr after what is here st. 3, but equally good sense (in terms of the known myth) is created by the sequence adopted here, which also follows the order in which sts 2, 3 and 4 are cited in Skm. According to this reading, Þórr perceives his fishing line go taut against the side of the ship (Bragi uses litotes to describe this) as the World Serpent uncoils itself on the sea-floor, having swallowed Þórr’s baited hook, before the god raises his hammer (see st. 3) in readiness to strike his adversary’s head as it emerges from the waves. Other interpretations of the stanza are possible. Skj B understands Miðgarðsormr to unwind upon the sand after Þórr has pulled him up from the bottom da midgårdsormen efterhånden (ved optrækningen) slæbtes henad sandbunden ‘when the Midgard serpent gradually (in the course of being pulled up) was dragged towards the sandy bottom’, while Kock (NN §219), followed by Turville-Petre (1976, 5), combines lá vilgi slakr at sandi and rakðisk á Eynæfis ǫndri ‘[the fishing line] lay by no means slack upon the sand [when Jǫrmungandr] unwound himself upon Eynæfir’s 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 16: AI, 4, BI, 4, Skald I, 2, NN §219; SnE 1848-87, I, 252-5, II, 308, III, 15, SnE 1931, 95, SnE 1998, I, 14-15.

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