Marm Lv 7^VIII (Hálf 12)

Kalt vatn augum         en kvett tönnum,
lérept líki,         lát mik aptr í sjó.
Dregr mik engi         í degi síðan
maðr upp í skip         af marabotnum.

Kalt vatn augum en kvett tönnum, lérept líki, lát mik aptr í sjó. Engi maðr dregr mik síðan í degi upp í skip af marabotnum.

Cold water for the eyes and a piece of meat for the teeth, linen for the body, put me back into the sea. No man will pull me then by daylight from the depths of the ocean up into a ship.

Mss: 2845(34r) (Hálf)

Editions: Skj AII, 258, Skj BII, 278, Skald II, 145, NN §3188; Hálf 1864, 11, Hálf 1909, 86, FSGJ 2, 103-4, Hálf 1981, 116, 175; Edd. Min. 91.

Context: The stanza is preceded by the words: Þá tók einn maðr í hönd honum ok spurði: Hvat er manni bezt? Marmendill svarar … ‘Then a man took him by the hand and asked: What is best for a man? The merman replies …’. The stanza is followed by the words: Kóngr gaf þeim Handi ok Hrindi land at búa á ok þar með þræl ok ambátt ‘The king gave Handir and Hrindir land to farm and with it a slave and a bondwoman’. 

Notes: [2] kvett ‘a piece of meat’: There has been much discussion about the meaning of the word kvett: Konráð Gíslason (1866c) suggests the reading kveitt, p. p. of an otherwise unknown verb *kveita used as an adj. (attributive to the n. noun vatn ‘water’ in l. 1) meaning ‘lukewarm, tepid’. Both Skj B and Skald adopt the form kveitt, Finnur Jónsson translating it as kuldslåt ‘lukewarm’. Fritzner (1885) reads kvett as kvætt, explaining it as an otherwise unknown Old Norse noun denoting ‘resin, tree-gum’ (ModDan. kvade) allegedly chewed by people in Scandinavia in the old days; Konráð Gíslason (1885) is mainly a reply to Fritzner’s criticism of Konráð Gíslason (1866c). Eiríkr Magnússon (1895) points out that in Modern Icelandic there is a noun kvetti ‘lean whale meat’ and suggests the meaning ‘piece of (whale) meat’ for kvett. — [6] síðan í degi ‘then by daylight’: Kock (NN §3188) disapproves of Finnur Jónsson’s translation (Skj B siden ‘again’) of í degi síðan and suggests mera i dag ‘more today’. Cf. Hálf 25/8 and Note there. — [8] af marabotnum ‘from the depths of the ocean’: This cpd was normalised to mararbotnum in Hálf 1864 and most later eds, except for Skald. According to ONP: marabotn, mararbotn this cpd is in most cases written marabotn, as in 2845.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
8. Hálf 1981 = Seelow, Hubert, ed. 1981. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. RSÁM 20. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar.
9. Fritzner, Johan. 1885. ‘Kvett tönnum’. ANF 2, 161-3.
10. Hálf 1864 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1864. Saga af Hálfi ok Hálfsrekkum. Norrøne Skrifter af sagnhistorisk Indhold 1. Christiania (Oslo): Det Nordiske Oldskriftselskab.
11. Hálf 1909 = Andrews, A. Le Roy, ed. 1909. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. ASB 14. Halle: Niemeyer.
12. Konráð Gíslason. 1866c. ‘Kuett, et Forklaringsforsøg’. ÅNOH, 337-82.
13. Konráð Gíslason. 1885. ‘Kvett’. ANF 2, 275-83.
14. Internal references
15. Hubert Seelow (ed.) 2017, ‘Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 25 (Hálfr Hjǫrleifsson, Innsteinskviða 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 324.