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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

Þás ‘When’

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þás (conj.): when

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él ‘the storm’

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él (noun n.; °; dat. -um): storm < élreifr (adj.)

kennings

élreifar dœtr Ægis,
‘the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, ’
   = WAVES

the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, → WAVES
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reifar ‘happy’

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2. reifr (adj.): happy < élreifr (adj.)

[1] ‑reifar: so all others, ‑refar R

kennings

élreifar dœtr Ægis,
‘the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, ’
   = WAVES

the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, → WAVES
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ófu ‘wove’

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vefa (verb): enfold, weave

[1] ófu: ‘afu’ B

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Ægis ‘of Ægir’

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Ægir (noun m.): Ægir, sea

kennings

élreifar dœtr Ægis,
‘the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, ’
   = WAVES

the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, → WAVES

notes

[2] dœtr Ægis ‘daughters of Ægir <giant> [WAVES]’: Ægir was a giant, the personification of the sea. His wife Rán personified the sea’s destructive power, while Ægir’s daughters are the waves; cf. st. 3/1 below, HHund I 29/6 and Gestumbl Heiðr 8-10VIII, as well as Þul Sjóvar 4, Þul Waves and ESk Frag 17. In SnE 1998, I, 36, the prose text preceding the citation of this stanza names Ægir’s nine daughters, all with names suggesting the sea’s turbulence.

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dœtr ‘daughters’

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dóttir (noun f.; °dóttur, dat. dóttur/dǿtr/dóttir, acc. dóttur/dóttir, nom. dóttir/dóttur; dǿtr, gen. dǿtra (cf. [$1592$])): daughter

kennings

élreifar dœtr Ægis,
‘the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, ’
   = WAVES

the storm-happy daughters of Ægir, → WAVES

notes

[2] dœtr Ægis ‘daughters of Ægir <giant> [WAVES]’: Ægir was a giant, the personification of the sea. His wife Rán personified the sea’s destructive power, while Ægir’s daughters are the waves; cf. st. 3/1 below, HHund I 29/6 and Gestumbl Heiðr 8-10VIII, as well as Þul Sjóvar 4, Þul Waves and ESk Frag 17. In SnE 1998, I, 36, the prose text preceding the citation of this stanza names Ægir’s nine daughters, all with names suggesting the sea’s turbulence.

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ok ‘and’

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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also

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tœttu ‘tore apart’

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tœta (verb): [tore apart]

[2] tœttu: so all others, teygðu R

notes

[2] tœttu ‘tore apart’: The verb tœta means ‘tear wool, tease or pick wool’, and is clearly the antithesis of ófu (l. 1, from vefa ‘weave, bring together’), describing the action of the whirlwinds in blowing the waves now together, now apart. Ms. R’s teygðu (from teygja ‘entice, lure, draw out’) is possible but less good than the majority mss’ reading, both in sense and because it does not provide aðalhending.

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fǫls ‘from the white’

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2. falr (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): white, marketable

[3] fǫls: fals all

notes

[3] fǫls ‘white’: All eds have emended the mss’ ‘fals’ to fǫls, following a suggestion of Konráð Gíslason (see Skj AI, 418 n.). The scribes may have sought to correct the rhyme between ǫ and a, which did not occur after the late C12th (see Hreinn Benediktsson 1963a). Fǫlr usually means ‘pale’, but here must refer to the snow-covered Greenland mountains.

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við ‘by’

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2. við (prep.): with, against

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frost ‘frost’

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frost (noun n.): frost

[3] frost: frest W

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of ‘’

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4. of (particle): (before verb)

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fjall ‘mountain’

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1. fjall (noun n.): mountain < fjallgarðr (noun m.)

[4] fjallgarðs: ‘f[…]’ B, ‘fiardgers’ 744ˣ

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garðs ‘range’

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garðr (noun m.): enclosure, yard < fjallgarðr (noun m.)

[4] fjallgarðs: ‘f[…]’ B, ‘fiardgers’ 744ˣ

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rokur ‘whirlwinds’

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roka (noun f.; °; -ur): [whirlwinds]

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Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

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.

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