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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Eil Þdr 20III

Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 20’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 119.

Eilífr GoðrúnarsonÞórsdrápa
192021

text and translation

Glaums niðjum fór gǫrva
gramr með dreyrgum hamri;
of salvanið Synjar
sigr hlaut arinbrautar.
Kom at tvíviðar tívi,
tollurr karms þás harmi,
-brautar liðs, of beitti,
bekk- fall, jǫtuns rekka.

Gramr með dreyrgum hamri fór gǫrva {niðjum Glaums}; hlaut sigr of {salvanið {Synjar {arinbrautar}}}. Fall liðs {bekkbrautar} kom at {tívi tvíviðar}, þás {tollurr karms} of beitti rekka jǫtuns harmi.
 
‘The ruler with the bloody hammer [= Þórr] totally destroyed the descendants of Glaumr <giant> [GIANTS]; [he] gained victory over the hall-visitor of the Syn <goddess> of the hearth-stone-path [MOUNTAINS > GIANTESS > GIANT]. The fall of the retinue of the bench-road [HOUSE] came at the god of the bow [WARRIOR = Geirrøðr], when the pole of the wagon-cab [CHARIOTEER = Þórr] inflicted violence on the warriors of the giant.

notes and context

See Context to st. 1.

[1]: This line lacks skothending. Kock attempts to restore the hending by emending gǫrvar ‘totally’ to gumna ‘of the men’ (NN §466) or griðja ‘of the comrades’ (NN §3056). Both emendations change the text significantly and are hardly justified by a missing hending. Reichardt (1948, 386) suggests reversing the order of niðjum and fór to create hending on gǫrva and fór. In that case, however, the hending falls on a dip, which rarely happens. — [5-8]: All earlier interpretations of this helmingr are problematic because of their many emendations and syntactic difficulties; Reichardt (1948, 387-8) believes that the half-stanza cannot be interpreted. The present interpretation proceeds from the fact that fall n. nom./acc. sg. ‘fall’ (l. 8) must be either the subject of the main clause or the acc. object of a verb. Since there is no verb in the helmingr which requires an acc., fall must be the subject of the main clause (cf. Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 399 and Skj B; NN §468; Reichardt 1948, 388), and that fits well with kom at tívi tvíviðar ‘came to the god of the bow [WARRIOR = Geirrøðr]’ (l. 5). However, fall as the subject of the main clause is difficult to reconcile with the subsequent rel. clause beginning with sás (m. nom. sg.), which can only refer to an antecedent m. nom. noun. Therefore sás has been emended to þás ‘when’. Tollurr karms ‘the pole of the wagon-box [CHARIOTEER = Þórr]’ (l. 6) is then the subject of the subordinate clause and is combined with of beitti harmi ‘inflicted violence on’ (ll. 6, 7). Rekka jǫtuns ‘the warriors of the giant’ (l. 8) is taken as the object of beitti harmi. This construction avoids the awkward syntactic fragmentation of the last line as e.g. in Skj B. Finally, fall ‘fall’ needs a qualifier, and this is provided by the remaining words brautar liðs (l. 7) and bekk (l. 8). Here tmesis is unavoidable: bekk- ‘bench’ is combined with ‑brautar ‘of the road’ to form the house-kenning ‘of the bench-road’ following the pattern ‘place where sth. can be found’. Joined with liðs ‘of the retinue’, this expression designates the giants, the followers of Geirrøðr.

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: Eilífr Goðrúnarson, 2. Þórsdrápa 19: AI, 151, BI, 143, Skald I, 78-9, NN §§466-8, 3056; SnE 1848-87, I, 302-3, III, 38-9, SnE 1931, 110, SnE 1998, I, 29.

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