Eil Þdr 16^III

Fátíða nam frœði
(fjarðeplis) kon Jarðar
(mœrar legs né mýgðu
menn ǫlteiti) kenna.
Almtaugar laust œgir
angrþjóf sega tangar
Óðins afli soðnum
áttruðr í gin Suðra.

{Kon Jarðar} nam kenna fátíða frœði; né mýgðu {menn {legs {mœrar {fjarðeplis}}}} ǫlteiti. {Œgir almtaugar}, {áttruðr Suðra}, laust {afli soðnum sega tangar} í gin {{angrþjóf} Óðins}.

{The son of Jǫrð <goddess>} [= Þórr] got to know an uncommon skill; nor did {the men {of the lair {of the land {of the fjord-apple}}}} [STONE > MOUNTAINS > CAVE > GIANTS] suppress the ale-cheer. {The terrifier of the bow-string} [WARRIOR = Geirrøðr], {the relative of Suðri <dwarf>} [GIANT], struck {a hearth-boiled morsel of tongs} [PIECE OF IRON] into the mouth {{of the sorrow-thief} [HELPER] of Óðinn <god>} [= Þórr].

Mss: R(25r), Tˣ(25v), W(53) (SnE)

Readings: [1] frœði: so Tˣ, W, fróði R    [3] mœrar: ‘morar’ Tˣ, merar W;    mýgðu: ‘mvgþo’ R, ‘mugdo’ Tˣ, ‘mvgðv’ W    [5] ‑taugar: so W, ‘tǫgar’ R, togar Tˣ    [6] sega: so Tˣ, ‘‑segv’ R, ‑segi W;    tangar: ‘tongv’ R, tungu Tˣ, ‘tǫngv’ W    [7] Óðins: ‘oðnis’ all    [8] áttruðr: áttniðr W

Editions: Skj AI, 151, Skj BI, 142-3, Skald I, 78, NN §§464, 1833, 2409; SnE 1848-87, I, 300-1, III, 35-6, SnE 1931, 109, SnE 1998, I, 29.

Context: See Context to st. 1.

Notes: [1, 4] nam kenna ‘got to know’: Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 396) translates kenna as lære, undervise ‘teach’, but in Skj B he translates nam kenna as viste ‘showed’; Kock (NN §1833), discarding both, suggests lære at kende, erfara ‘learn, get to know’ which Finnur Jónsson adopts in LP: 1. frœði. The present edn follows Kock. — [1] fátíða ‘uncommon’: Lit. ‘scarce, scarcely at hand’ is translated as sjældne ‘uncommon, unusual’ in Skj B (so also Kiil 1956, 147), but this cpd adj. could also mean ‘little desired’ (NN §464; Reichardt 1948, 379). Because Þórr is unable to use his attribute, the hammer, he is forced to resort to another, and for him ‘uncommon’ or ‘rare’, weapon here. — [2, 3, 4] menn legs mœrar fjarðeplis ‘the men of the lair of the land of the fjord-apple [STONE > MOUNTAINS > CAVE > GIANTS]’: This extended kenning, first suggested by Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 396), is superior to other arrangements and interpretations of these kenning elements (e.g. NN §464; Kiil 1956, 147). — [2] kon Jarðar ‘the son of Jǫrð <goddess> [= Þórr]’: Emendation of kon (so all mss) to konr is not necessary to supply a subject for the first clause (so Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 395; Skj B; Reichardt 1948, 379), since the nom. form kon occurs quite frequently (ANG §209-10, §285 Anm. 2). Other attempts to provide a subject are unconvincing. Kock (NN §464) tries to create a giant-kenning by emending fátíða (so all mss) to fátíði. He construes fátíði fjarðeplis ‘the loathed one in the mountain’, a kenning that Reichardt (1948, 379) rightly rejects, describing it as an unannehmbare Umschreibung ‘unacceptable periphrasis’. — [3, 4] né mýgðu menn … ǫlteiti ‘nor did the men … suppress the ale-cheer’: All eds, beginning with Finnur Jónsson (1900b, 395), emend the mss’ ‘mvgþo’ (R), ‘mugdo’ (Tˣ) and ‘mvgðv’ (W) to mýgðu. According to Finnur (ibid.), the giants did not let the fight between Geirrøðr and Þórr disturb their beer-drinking. — [5] œgir almtaugar ‘the terrifier of the bow-string [WARRIOR = Geirrøðr]’: From the context it is obvious that this kenning can only refer to Geirrøðr. This is a warrior-kenning and not a giant-kenning, but, as the apposition áttruðr Suðra ‘relative of Suðri <dwarf>’ makes clear, it does not refer to a human warrior. The kenning may have been motivated by occasional references to giants as archers, cf. st. 12/7, where the giants are called skyld-Breta skytju ‘kin-Britons of the markswoman [= Skaði]’ and st. 20/5, where Geirrøðr is referred to as ‘god of the bow’. — [6, 7] afli soðnum sega tangar ‘a hearth-boiled morsel of tongs [PIECE OF IRON]’: This is an ad hoc kenning formation and it follows no traditional pattern. It is based on the metaphorical likeness between cooking food (a piece of meat, boiled) and forging (tongs, hearth): a boiled piece of meat is likened to an iron object held in the tongs and heated to incandescence on the hearth. At the level of food, the metaphor is further developed through í gin ‘into the mouth’. The following stanzas make use of this metaphor as well (see Frank 1986, 98). — [6, 7] angrþjóf Óðins ‘of the sorrow-thief [HELPER] of Óðinn [= Þórr]’: The base-word of this kenning is itself a kenning, ‘anguish-thief [HELPER]’. The mss have ‘oðnis’ (not an Old Norse word) which all eds emend to Óðins. The scribes could have invented this form to repair what they perceived to be an inferior hending (with soðnum ‘boiled’). Rhyme on a single consonant in the postvocalic environment (here Óð- : soð-) is licit, however (Kuhn 1983, 77). The kenning refers to Þórr’s task of defeating giants who threaten Ásgarðr – the giants who are Óðinn’s ‘sorrow’. Most of the extant myths about Þórr deal with his role as giant-slayer. — [6] tangar ‘of tongs’: The mss’ ‘tongv’ (R), ‘tungu’ (Tˣ) and ‘tǫngv’ (W) have been emended to tangar f. gen. sg. both because of the required aðalhending with angr- and because tǫngu cannot be an inflected form of tǫng, a f. ō-stem (cf. ANG §375, although ONP: tǫng lists one C14th attestation of tǫngu). — [8] áttruðr Suðra ‘the relative of Suðri <dwarf> [GIANT]’: Lit. ‘family-bush of Suðri’. It seems odd that a giant is called the relative of a dwarf. Suðri is a dwarf who, along with three other dwarfs, Austri, Vestri and Norðri, supports the arc of the heavens (Gylf, SnE 2005, 12; see also Þul Dverga 2/6). Both giants and dwarfs reside in caves and mountains, however (cf. Davidson 1983, 640), and in some cases names of dwarfs are also attested as names of giants (e.g. Litr, see Note to Þul Dverga 6/2).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. 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.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Frank, Roberta. 1986. ‘Hand Tools and Power Tools in Eilífr’s Þórsdrápa’. In Lindow et al. 1986, 94-109.
8. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
9. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
10. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1983. Das Dróttkvætt. Heidelberg: Winter.
11. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
12. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
13. Davidson, Daphne L. 1983. ‘Earl Hákon and his Poets’. D. Phil. thesis. Oxford.
14. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
15. Finnur Jónsson. 1900b. ‘Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goðrúnarsonar’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1900, 369-410.
16. Kiil, Vilhelm. 1956. ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa’. ANF 71, 89-167.
17. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1948. ‘Die Thórsdrápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation’. PMLA 63, 329-91.
18. Internal references
19. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=113> (accessed 25 April 2024)
20. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Dverga heiti 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. 695.
21. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Dverga heiti 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. 704.
22. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Óðins nǫfn’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 731. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3228> (accessed 25 April 2024)