Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Hofgarða-Refr Gestsson, Fragments 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. 261.
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soð (noun n.): [broth]
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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also
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1. síðr (adj.; °compar. -ari): long, hanging
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1. heðinn (noun m.; °dat. heðni): fur, skin
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sundr (adv.): (a)sunder
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2. fœra (verb): bring
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tré (noun n.; °-s; tré/trjó, gen. trjá, dat. trjóm/trjám): tree
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grundi (noun m.): grundi
[2] Grundi: This monothematic pers. n. might be that of a farmhand (SnE 1848-87, III, 201; LP: Grundi). It is possible to connect the two genitives in l. 1 with the name (SnE 1848-87, III, 201; NN §844G), which would then be characteristics of his (‘Grundi of broth and long furs’).
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
The couplet is cited in LaufE to illustrate how tré ‘wood’ can come to mean ullarflóki ‘felted wool’ through substitution by a long series of homonyms and synonyms.
The prose context does not contribute much to the interpretation of the couplet, because it consists of a long, consecutive string of substitutions of homonyms and synonyms intended to demonstrate that ullarflóki ‘felted wool’ can replace tré ‘wood’. This substitution process is called rekit ‘extended’ in LaufE, which, however, is incompatible with the way the word rekit is used in Snorri’s Ht (SnE 2007, 5), where the term denotes multisegmental kennings. Thus according to the chain of replacements, Grundi is supposed to be plucking apart a knot of wool rather than chopping wood, as the text appears to say at first glance. This extreme use of substitution by synonyms and homonyms, however, seems to be more of a language affectation of the late Middle Ages than something that could contribute to an understanding of these two lines by Refr.
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