Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Óláfr svartaskáld Leggsson, Love poem 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. 317.
Hǫg leit hvarma skógar
hlaðnorn við mér stjǫrnum.
{Hǫg hlaðnorn} leit {stjǫrnum {skógar hvarma}} við mér.
{The accomplished norn of the headband} [WOMAN] looked at me {with her stars {of the forest of eyelids}} [EYELASHES > EYES].
Mss: W(169) (SnE); 2368ˣ(97), 743ˣ(76r) (LaufE)
Readings: [1] leit: lét all [2] ‑norn: ‘tiorn’ 2368ˣ, ‘‑tiǫrn’ 743ˣ; stjǫrnum: ‘stiórnu’ 2368ˣ, ‘stiǫrnu’ 743ˣ
Editions: Skj AII, 85, Skj BII, 97, Skald II, 52; SnE 1848-87, II, 499, III, 181, LaufE 1979, 355.
Context: In W the couplet is cited as an example of kennings for ‘eyelash’ (hrís eða gras hvarma ęða avgna ‘brush or grass of the eyelids or of the eyes’), and in LaufE it illustrates kennings for ‘eye’.
Notes: [1] leit ‘looked’: All mss have lét, 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of the verb láta ‘let, leave, lose, say, sound’, which makes little sense here, and the emendation is in keeping with earlier eds. — [2]: The line has skothending rather than aðalhending, and the scribes of the LaufE mss attempted to remedy that by replacing ‑norn with ‑tjǫrn ‘pool’ (so 743ˣ; the 2368ˣ variants, ‘tiorn’ rhyming with ‘stiórnu’, are difficult to make sense of). — [2] -norn ‘norn’: A minor female deity of fate in Old Norse myth.
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