StarkSt Vík 7VIII (Gautr 15)
Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 15 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 7)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 261.
Hann ‘He’
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hann (pron.; °gen. hans, dat. honum; f. hon, gen. hennar, acc. hana): he, she, it, they, them...
notes
[1] mældi ‘measured’: Both mss have mælti ‘spoke’, but the context indicates that the verb must be mældi, 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of mæla ‘measure’.
mik ‘me’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
mundum ‘with hands’
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1. mund (noun f.): hand
ok ‘and’
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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also
spönnum ‘hand-breadths’
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spǫnn (noun f.; °spannar; gen. spanna): grip
notes
[2] spönnum (dat. pl.) ‘hand-breadths’: As in Modern English and other Germanic languages, a span or hand-breadth was originally the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, or sometimes to the tip of the forefinger, when the hand is fully extended, a measure of length of about nine inches (cf. OED: span, n.1).
alla ‘all’
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allr (adj.): all
arma ‘my arms’
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1. armr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -i; -ar): arm
til ‘to’
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til (prep.): to
úlfliða ‘the wrists’
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ulfliðr (noun m.): [wrist]
notes
[3-4] alla arma til úlfliða ‘all my arms to the wrists’: I.e. ‘my arms from the top down to the wrists’. There may be another allusion to Starkaðr’s original six or eight arms here (see Note to Gautr 13/2 and Gautr 40 Note to [All]). — [4] úlfliða ‘the wrists’: Lit. ‘the wolf-joints’. The cpd úlfliðr ‘wolf-joint’ (cf. Arn Frag 4/3III) is explained by Snorri Sturluson in Gylf (SnE 2005, 25), doubtless basing himself on popular etymology, as derived from the story of how the gods persuaded the wolf Fenrir to be bound with the fetter Gleipnir. Týr placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth as a pledge of the gods’ good faith, but, when they later refused to release the wolf, he bit Týr’s hand off at the wrist, and that is why the wrist may be called úlfliðr. The first element in this cpd probably derives from ǫln ‘forearm’; cf. Þul á hendi l. 5 and Note.
úlfliða ‘the wrists’
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ulfliðr (noun m.): [wrist]
notes
[3-4] alla arma til úlfliða ‘all my arms to the wrists’: I.e. ‘my arms from the top down to the wrists’. There may be another allusion to Starkaðr’s original six or eight arms here (see Note to Gautr 13/2 and Gautr 40 Note to [All]). — [4] úlfliða ‘the wrists’: Lit. ‘the wolf-joints’. The cpd úlfliðr ‘wolf-joint’ (cf. Arn Frag 4/3III) is explained by Snorri Sturluson in Gylf (SnE 2005, 25), doubtless basing himself on popular etymology, as derived from the story of how the gods persuaded the wolf Fenrir to be bound with the fetter Gleipnir. Týr placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth as a pledge of the gods’ good faith, but, when they later refused to release the wolf, he bit Týr’s hand off at the wrist, and that is why the wrist may be called úlfliðr. The first element in this cpd probably derives from ǫln ‘forearm’; cf. Þul á hendi l. 5 and Note.
… ‘…’
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(non-lexical)
… ‘’
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(non-lexical)
vaxit ‘grown’
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vaxa (verb): grow, increase
hári ‘with hair’
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2. hár (noun n.; °-s; -): hair
höku ‘chin’
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haka (noun f.; °*-u; *-ur): °hage (i ansigt)
niðri ‘down’
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niðri (adv.): below
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
As for Gautr 13.
Immediately after the end of this stanza, the prose text offers the following gloss: Hér segir Starkaðr frá því, at hann hafði þá skegg er hann var tólf vetra ‘Here Starkaðr tells that he already had a beard when he was twelve years old’. This explanation may have been given because the stanza itself was defective when the prose text was first composed; neither ms. has a full eight-line stanza, yet there is no lacuna in either for the missing lines (probably ll. 5-6 in the original version), which would have mentioned Starkaðr’s precocious growth of beard. It is interesting that the explanatory prose gloss is also present in papp11ˣ, though the stanza is absent.
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