Skúli Lv 1III
Kate Heslop (ed.) 2017, ‘Skúli Þorsteinsson, Lausavísa 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 367.
kennings
goðblíð beðja Glens‘the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr ’
= Sól
the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr → Sól
notes
[1] beðja Glens ‘bedmate of Glenr <mythical being> [= Sól (sól ‘sun’)]’: Glenr is the husband of the sun, Sól, according to Gylf (SnE 2005, 13), the only other extant source to mention him (see Kock 1898, 264-5, for the etymology of the name). For the goddess Sól, see Þul Ásynja 2/3 and Note there.
beðja ‘bedmate ’
(not checked:)
beðja (noun f.): bedmate
kennings
goðblíð beðja Glens‘the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr ’
= Sól
the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr → Sól
notes
[1] beðja Glens ‘bedmate of Glenr <mythical being> [= Sól (sól ‘sun’)]’: Glenr is the husband of the sun, Sól, according to Gylf (SnE 2005, 13), the only other extant source to mention him (see Kock 1898, 264-5, for the etymology of the name). For the goddess Sól, see Þul Ásynja 2/3 and Note there.
gyðju ‘the goddess’s’
(not checked:)
gyðja (noun f.): goddess, priestess
[1] gyðju: ‘g[…]’ U, gyðjur B
notes
[1, 2] vé gyðju ‘the goddess’s sanctuary’: Vé ‘sanctuary’ would usually suggest a space sanctified to the goddess, but here it seems to refer to Sól’s bed, where the personified sun rests at night.
kennings
goðblíð beðja Glens‘the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr ’
= Sól
the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr → Sól
blíð ‘gentle’
(not checked:)
blíðr (adj.; °n. sg. nom. & acc. blítt/blíðt; compar. -ari, superl. -astr): gentle, happy < goðblíðr (adj.)
kennings
goðblíð beðja Glens‘the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr ’
= Sól
the divinely gentle bedmate of Glenr → Sól
notes
[1, 2] vé gyðju ‘the goddess’s sanctuary’: Vé ‘sanctuary’ would usually suggest a space sanctified to the goddess, but here it seems to refer to Sól’s bed, where the personified sun rests at night.
síðan ‘Then’
(not checked:)
síðan (adv.): later, then
ljós ‘light’
(not checked:)
ljóss (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): bright
kemr ‘comes’
(not checked:)
koma (verb; kem, kom/kvam, kominn): come
geislum ‘her beams’
(not checked:)
geisli (noun m.): beam of light
grán ‘of the grey’
(not checked:)
gránn (adj.): grey < gránserkr (adj.)
kennings
gránserks Mána‘of the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) ’
= SKY
the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) → SKY
notes
[4] gránserks ‘of the grey-shirt’: The only other skaldic attestation of this cpd is in the mailshirt-kenning gránserkr Hamðis ‘grey shirt of Hamðir’ (Anon Krm 17/10VIII). Earlier eds take gránserkr as an adj., gránserkr Máni ‘grey-shirted Máni’, which LP: gránserkr explains as ifört grå særk … om månens gråblege udseende ‘dressed in a grey shirt … of the pale grey appearance of the moon’. The noun serkr ‘shirt’ is not otherwise attested as an adj. (neither as a simplex nor as a second element in compounds; the relevant adj. is gráserkjaðr ‘grey-shirted’, cf. Grott 13/8), and in Gamlkan Has 18/2VII élserkr ‘storm-shirt’ is a kenning for ‘sky’. All mss other than R have gránsetr m. ‘grey-seat, ‑home’ (or gránsetrs gen. ‘of the grey-seat’), which can be construed as another kenning for ‘sky’ (gránsetrs Mána ‘of the grey-seat of Máni’). Possibly the unusual solar imagery of the helmingr led to scribal replacement of the unexpected serkr m. ‘shirt’ with a word common in sky-kennings (setr sólar ‘seat of the sun’, etc.) as well as in words like sólsetr, dagsetr ‘sunset’.
serks ‘shirt’
(not checked:)
1. serkr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -/-i; -ir): shirt < gránserkr (adj.)
[4] ‑serks: ‑setrs Tˣ, 744ˣ, ‑setr W, ‘[…]trs’ U, ‘set[…]’ B
kennings
gránserks Mána‘of the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) ’
= SKY
the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) → SKY
notes
[4] gránserks ‘of the grey-shirt’: The only other skaldic attestation of this cpd is in the mailshirt-kenning gránserkr Hamðis ‘grey shirt of Hamðir’ (Anon Krm 17/10VIII). Earlier eds take gránserkr as an adj., gránserkr Máni ‘grey-shirted Máni’, which LP: gránserkr explains as ifört grå særk … om månens gråblege udseende ‘dressed in a grey shirt … of the pale grey appearance of the moon’. The noun serkr ‘shirt’ is not otherwise attested as an adj. (neither as a simplex nor as a second element in compounds; the relevant adj. is gráserkjaðr ‘grey-shirted’, cf. Grott 13/8), and in Gamlkan Has 18/2VII élserkr ‘storm-shirt’ is a kenning for ‘sky’. All mss other than R have gránsetr m. ‘grey-seat, ‑home’ (or gránsetrs gen. ‘of the grey-seat’), which can be construed as another kenning for ‘sky’ (gránsetrs Mána ‘of the grey-seat of Máni’). Possibly the unusual solar imagery of the helmingr led to scribal replacement of the unexpected serkr m. ‘shirt’ with a word common in sky-kennings (setr sólar ‘seat of the sun’, etc.) as well as in words like sólsetr, dagsetr ‘sunset’.
ofan ‘down’
(not checked:)
ofan (adv.): down
Mána ‘of Máni (‘Moon’)’
(not checked:)
máni (noun m.; °-a): moon
kennings
gránserks Mána‘of the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) ’
= SKY
the grey-shirt of Máni (‘Moon’) → SKY
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
This helmingr is the first of two verse quotations exemplifying sun-kennings in Skm, here beðja Glens ‘bedmate of Glenr’ (see Note).
Earlier eds have arranged the words in this helmingr in various ways with little effect on the overall meaning (the sun sets; the moon rises). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B, followed by Faulkes in SnE 1998) takes the adv. síðan ‘then’ (l. 2) with the second clause; however, that arrangement violates the word order in independent clauses since it results in two preposed sentence elements (síðan, ljós ‘light’, l. 3) before the finite verb kemr ‘comes’ (l. 3). Kock (Skald; NN §771) construes each line-pair as a self-contained unit (‘then the sun goes to the goddess’s sanctuary; the good light of the moon comes down in beams’), which is a viable alternative (but see Note to l. 4 below). — For medieval Norwegians’ and Icelanders’ interest in cosmology and in the movements of the heavenly bodies, including the sun, moon, planets and stars, see Clunies Ross and Gade (2012).
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