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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Bragi Frag 6III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Fragments 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 62.

Bragi inn gamli BoddasonFragments
56

text and translation

Þann áttak vin verstan
vazt- rǫdd en mér baztan
Ála -undirkúlu
óniðraðan þriðja.

Áttak þann vin þriðja óniðraðan, verstan {rǫdd {Ála {vazt-undirkúlu}}} en baztan mér.
 
‘I had that friend, the third one, blameless, worst to the voice of the Áli <sea-king> of the fishing ground-under-knob [ROCK > GIANT > GOLD], but best to me.

notes and context

See Introduction to Frag 5-6 above. In the prose both before and after this stanza Snorri directs the reader’s or listener’s interpretation. He states at the beginning: Hér má þat heyra at kallat er orð eða rǫdd jǫtna gullit, svá sem fyrr er sagt. Svá kvað Bragi skáld ‘Here one may hear that gold is called the words or voice of giants, as has been said above. Thus spoke the poet Bragi’. Snorri’s previous reference to this kenning-type comes near the beginning of Skm (SnE 1998, I, 3), right at the end of his narrative about the giant Þjazi. Here he has the deity Bragi explain that the family of this giant was very wealthy and was in the habit of dividing their inheritance by measuring it out in mouthfuls of gold; hence gold can be called the ‘mouth-count’ (munntal) or, by extension, the speech or voice of giants. After the stanza Snorri directs interpretation thus: Hann kallaði stein vazta undirkúlu – steinninn – en jǫtun Ála steinsins (reading of Tx, W), en gull rǫdd jǫtuns, ‘He called the rock the fishing grounds’ under-knob the rock and the giant the Áli of the rock, and gold the voice of the giant’.

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, 2. Ubestemmelige vers 4: AI, 5, BI, 5, Skald I, 3, NN §222; SnE 1848-87, I, 350-1, II, 320-1, III, 58, SnE 1931, 126, SnE 1998, I, 44.

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