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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sveinn Norðrdr 3III

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.

SveinnNorðrsetudrápa
23

Dœtr ‘The daughters’

(not checked:)
dóttir (noun f.; °dóttur, dat. dóttur/dǿtr/dóttir, acc. dóttur/dóttir, nom. dóttir/dóttur; dǿtr, gen. dǿtra (cf. [$1592$])): daughter

[1] Dœtr: ‘dættr’ W

kennings

Dœtr Hlés
‘The daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> ’
   = WAVES

The daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> → WAVES

notes

[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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Hlés ‘of Hlér <= Ægir>’

(not checked:)
Hlér (noun m.): Hlér

kennings

Dœtr Hlés
‘The daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> ’
   = WAVES

The daughters of Hlér <= Ægir> → WAVES

notes

[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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á ‘against’

(not checked:)
3. á (prep.): on, at

notes

[1] á við ‘against the ship’: For the sense of viðr ‘wood, tree’ as ‘[wooden] ship’, see LP: viðr 5.

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við ‘the ship’

(not checked:)
1. viðr (noun m.; °-ar, dat. -i/-; -ir, acc. -u/-i): wood, tree

notes

[1] á við ‘against the ship’: For the sense of viðr ‘wood, tree’ as ‘[wooden] ship’, see LP: viðr 5.

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

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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