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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sveinn Norðrdr 1III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Sveinn, Norðrsetudrápa 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. 399.

SveinnNorðrsetudrápa
12

text and translation

Þás élreifar ófu
Ægis dœtr ok tœttu
fǫls við frost of alnar
fjallgarðs rokur harðar.

Þás harðar rokur fǫls fjallgarðs ófu ok tœttu {élreifar dœtr Ægis}, of alnar við frost.
 
‘When hard whirlwinds from the white mountain range wove and tore apart the storm-happy daughters of Ægir <giant> [WAVES], nourished by frost.

notes and context

This helmingr is cited in the section of Skm exemplifying kennings for the sea. Strictly speaking, the stanza exemplifies kennings for the waves, said to be the daughters of the giant Ægir, a personification of the sea.

This helmingr is a subordinate clause so the full sense of the complete stanza can only be guessed at. There are two ways of construing the clause: as is done here, in Skj B and SnE 1998, and as suggested by Kock (NN §2989H). Kock takes élreifar dœtr Ægis ‘the storm-happy daughters of Ægir’ as the subject of the clause, with harðar rokur ‘hard whirlwinds’ as direct object. This gives the sense ‘when the storm-happy daughters of Ægir [WAVES] wove and tore apart hard whirlwinds, nourished by frost, from the white mountain range’. Grammatically, it is unexceptional, but it seems to be less good from the point of view of sense.

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: Sveinn, Norðrsetudrápa 1: AI, 418, BI, 387, Skald I, 192, NN §§903, 2989H; SnE 1848-87, I, 324-7, II, 529, III, 51-2, SnE 1931, 116, SnE 1998, I, 37.

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