Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Sveinn, Norðrsetudrápa 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 400.
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dóttir (noun f.; °dóttur, dat. dóttur/dǿtr/dóttir, acc. dóttur/dóttir, nom. dóttir/dóttur; dǿtr, gen. dǿtra (cf. [$1592$])): daughter
[1] Dœtr: ‘dættr’ W
[1] dœtr Hlés ‘the daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> [WAVES]’: If this kenning is the subject of blésu ‘blew’, the personification presumably extends to the idea of wind-swept waves, beating upon the ship’s side. Hlér is an alternative name for the sea-giant Ægir (SnE 1998, I, 1): Einn maðr er nefndr Ægir eða Hlér ‘There was a person called Ægir or Hlér’.
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Hlér (noun m.): Hlér
[1] dœtr Hlés ‘the daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> [WAVES]’: If this kenning is the subject of blésu ‘blew’, the personification presumably extends to the idea of wind-swept waves, beating upon the ship’s side. Hlér is an alternative name for the sea-giant Ægir (SnE 1998, I, 1): Einn maðr er nefndr Ægir eða Hlér ‘There was a person called Ægir or Hlér’.
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3. á (prep.): on, at
[1] á við ‘against the ship’: For the sense of viðr ‘wood, tree’ as ‘[wooden] ship’, see LP: viðr 5.
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1. viðr (noun m.; °-ar, dat. -i/-; -ir, acc. -u/-i): wood, tree
[1] á við ‘against the ship’: For the sense of viðr ‘wood, tree’ as ‘[wooden] ship’, see LP: viðr 5.
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2. blása (verb; °blǽss; blés, blésu; blásinn): blow
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This line is cited by Óláfr Þórðarson in ch. 16 of the Málskrúðsfræði section of TGT on various figures and tropes. He uses Sveinn’s line to exemplify a kind of irony, antiphrasis, which, he says, occurs when a single noun means the opposite of its lexical sense. The example relates to the personal name Hlér, which Óláfr must have understood to mean ‘Calm one’, for he says (TGT 1927, 85): Hér er sær kallaðr hlér, þvíat hann hlýr allra minst ‘Here the sea is called Hlér, because it does not protect at all’.
The full verse context of this line can only be guessed at. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 232) suggested that it might be the last line of the same helmingr as st. 2 above.
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