Tindr Hákdr 5^I

Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Tindr Hallkelsson, Hákonardrápa 5’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 347.

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

As for st. 4.

[1-4]: No wholly satisfactory solution to the difficulties posed by the ms. text has been devised thus far. In this edn it is proposed that gen. sg. dóms ‘judgement’ in l. 3 be emended to acc. sg. dóm, construed as the object of kenndi (from kenna ‘to teach’), with hermǫrum ára ‘war-horses of oars [SHIPS]’ (presumably the enemy ships) as the dat. of those taught. The construction is paralleled in st. 6/5-8, though applied in an unusual way here since those taught are inanimate. The result is three kennings in the helmingr, as contrasted with the two identified in previous scholarship, but less complex syntax and more idiomatic skaldic usage. Previous suggestions can be summarised as follows. (a) Finnur Jónsson (1886b, 333) takes en in l. 1 as the def. art. enn/inn and ken(n)di as an adjectival p. p., hence the noun phrase enn Gǫndlar dóms kendi jarl, which he translates den i kampe prøvede jarl ‘the jarl proved in battle’. However, en(n) and ken(n)di are widely separated in the text and the gen. case Gǫndlar dóms ‘judgement of Gǫndul [BATTLE]’ modifying ken(n)di is not paralleled elsewhere. (b) Kock (NN §432; Skald) also takes ken(n)di as adjectival and reads the text as jarl enn ára | endr hermǫrum kendi and translates: den för sina örlogsfartyg förut välbekante jarlen ‘the jarl, well-known from beforehand for his battle-vessels’, but such a description would be hard to parallel. Further, the suggested combination of geirs and Gǫndlar dóms as ‘war-spear’ is not recognisable skaldic idiom. — [7]: No convincing solution has been proposed for this garbled line, which lacks both alliteration and hending. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (Fms 12; SHI 11) emends ms. ‘nunnar’ to mýrar ‘swamp’ and ‘fus’ to fúrs ‘fire’ so as to generate a gold-kenning. Rejecting this on the grounds that mýrar would not be a valid determinant (as pertaining more to land, not water), Finnur Jónsson (1886b, 336) proposes mærðar, retaining fúss, thus ‘eager for renown’, and further emends ms. mæti to Mœri, here influenced by the localisation of the battle offshore from Møre (ON Mœrr) in Jvs (cf. Blake, Jvs 1962, 49).