Þjóð Haustl 16^III

Þyrmðit Baldrs of barmi
(berg) solgnum þar dolgi
(hristusk bjǫrg ok brustu)
— brann upphiminn — manna.
Mjǫk frák móti hrøkkva
myrkbeins Haka reinar,
þás vígligan, vagna
vátt, sinn bana þátti.

{Of barmi Baldrs} þyrmðit þar {solgnum dolgi manna}; berg hristusk ok bjǫrg brustu; upphiminn brann. Frák {vátt {vagna {myrkbeins {reinar Haka}}}} hrøkkva mjǫk móti, þás þátti vígligan bana sinn.

{The brother of Baldr} [= Þórr] did not spare there {the greedy enemy of men} [GIANT = Hrungnir]; rocks were shaken and crags burst apart; the heaven above burnt. I have heard that {the knower {of killer whales {of the dark bone {of the land of Haki <sea-king>}}}} [SEA > ROCK > GIANTS > GIANT = Hrungnir] moved very violently in opposition, when he recognised his warlike slayer.

Mss: R(24r), Tˣ(24v), W(51) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Þyrmðit: ‘þverriðit’ W;    of: af W    [2] þar: sák W    [4] upp‑: ‘rꜳn’ W;    manna: mána W    [5] móti: mæri or mæti W;    hrøkkva: ‘hrau\c/kua’ Tˣ    [6] myrkbeins: so W, myrk hreins R, mein þorns Tˣ;    Haka: so all others, baka R    [7] vagna (‘vꜹgna’): ‘vaugna’ Tˣ, ‘vogna’ W    [8] vátt: so all others, ‘vatr’ R;    þátti: so all others, ‘þatri’ R

Editions: Skj AI, 19, Skj BI, 17, Skald I, 11, NN §§141, 226, 1813, 2409, 2505, 2506, 3097A; SnE 1848-87, I, 280-1, III, 21-2, SnE 1931, 104, SnE 1998, I, 23.

Context: As for st. 14.

Notes: [1] of barmi Baldrs ‘the brother of Baldr [= Þórr]’: Baldr was Þórr’s half-brother; Óðinn was the father of both gods, but Þórr’s mother was Jǫrð (see Note to st. 15/7), while Baldr’s was Óðinn’s wife Frigg (SnE 2005, 45-8; Vsp 53). Barmi is a poetic word for brother, and means lit. ‘child nourished at the same breast’, untrue in this case. Cf. Bragi Rdr 3/8 of barmar Erps ‘the brothers of Erpr’, also used of half-brothers. Of is here the pleonastic particle (LP: 1. of C), sometimes found in early poetry with nouns of kinship or close friendship; in Haustl there are instances of this usage in of rúni Þórs ‘confidant of Þórr [= Loki]’ st. 8/5, of rúna trolls trjónu ‘friend of the troll of the muzzle [= Mjǫllnir > = Þórr]’ st. 17/7 and here; cf. Kuhn (1929a) and Fidjestøl (1989b). — [2, 3] berg hristusk ok bjǫrg brustu ‘rocks were shaken and crags burst apart’: It would also be possible to arrange the word order as bjǫrg hristusk ok berg brustu ‘crags were shaken and rocks burst apart’ (so Skj B). Kock (NN §§141, 2409, 2506) suggested several ways of construing ll. 1-4 without an intercalary, though none of them are persuasive, and several require emendation (Skald has bergfolgnum ‘rock-sheltered’ (l. 2), agreeing with dolgi ‘enemy’ (l. 2) and takes upphiminn manna ‘heaven above of men’ (l. 4) as a sky-kenning). — [6, 7, 8] vátt vagna myrkbeins reinar Haka ‘the knower of killer whales of the dark bone of the land of Haki <sea-king> [SEA > ROCK > GIANTS > GIANT = Hrungnir]’: There has been considerable debate among scholars about the most plausible arrangement of the elements of this extended giant-kenning. In this kenning, vagna ‘of killer whales’ is strictly speaking redundant, as váttr myrkbeins reinar Haka ‘knower of the dark bone of the land of Haki <sea-king>’ could be understood on its own as a giant-kenning. The interpretation adopted here, originally proposed by Reichardt (1928, 102), follows the word order of the helmingr most closely. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) offers the slightly more convoluted vátt myrkbeins reinar vagna Haka ‘the knower of the dark bone of the land of the carriages of Haki <sea-king> [SHIPS > SEA > ROCK > GIANT = Hrungnir]’. Vátt lit. ‘witness’, ‘knower’, possibly ‘frequenter’ (l. 8) is the direct object of frák ‘I have heard’ (l. 5). Vagna (or vǫgna, as the spelling of the mss seems to suggest, cf. ANG §81) may either be gen. pl. of vǫgn ‘killer whale, orca’, as understood here (cf. st. 4/5 ving-Rǫgnir vagna ‘the swinging Rǫgnir <= Óðinn> of killer whales [GIANT = Þjazi]’), or gen. pl. of vagn ‘carriage, chariot’. Marold (1983, 171 n. 415) offers a thorough refutation of the readings of Kock (NN §§226, 1813, 2505, 3097A and Skald) and various other scholars.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
8. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
9. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
10. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1929a. Das Füllwort of-um im Altwestnordischen: Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der germanischen Präfixe: Ein Beitrag zur altgermanischen Metrik. Ergänzungsheft zur Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiet der indogermanischen Sprachen 8. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
11. Marold, Edith. 1983. Kenningkunst: Ein Beitrag zu einer Poetik der Skaldendichtung. Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker, new ser. 80. Berlin: de Gruyter.
12. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
13. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
14. Fidjestøl, Bjarne. 1989b. ‘Ekspletivpartikkelen som dateringskriterium: Forsøk i filologisk statistikk’. In Eithun et al. 1989, 46-64. Trans. with additions as ‘The Expletive Particle’ in Fidjestøl 1999, 207-30.
15. Internal references
16. Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 431. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1438> (accessed 20 April 2024)
17. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa 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. 31.
18. Not published: do not cite ()
19. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Þórs heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 758. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3186> (accessed 20 April 2024)