Forað Lv 1VIII (Ket 17)
Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 17 (Forað, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 567.
Forað ‘Forað’
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forað (noun n.): terrifying, Forað
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
heiti ‘am named’
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2. heita (verb): be called, promise
fædd ‘born’
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2. fœða (verb): to feed, give food to, bring up, bear, give birth to
var ‘was’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
norðarla ‘in northern parts’
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norðarla (adv.)
hraust ‘valiant’
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hraustr (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): strong, valiant
í ‘in’
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í (prep.): in, into
notes
[3] í Hrafnseyju ‘in Hrafnsey’: Lit. ‘Raven’s island’. Unidentified p. n.
Hrafnseyju ‘Hrafnsey’
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Hrafnsey (noun f.)
notes
[3] í Hrafnseyju ‘in Hrafnsey’: Lit. ‘Raven’s island’. Unidentified p. n.
hvimleið ‘loathsome’
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hvimleiðr (adj.)
notes
[4] hvimleið búmönnum ‘loathsome to the farmers’: The first element of the cpd hvimleiðr is a variant of the dat. sg. hveim (indef. pron.: ‘to everyone’). In several other texts the statement that someone is ‘abominable to everyone’ forms part of a curse or imprecation, for example in HHj 25/2 (NK 145), where Helgi tells the giantess Hrímgerðr that she is leið ... mannkyni ‘abominable to mankind’; cf. the curse in GrL ch. 2 (FSGJ 2, 193).
búmönnum ‘farmers’
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búmaðr (noun m.; °; ·menn, gen. ·manna): farmer
notes
[4] hvimleið búmönnum ‘loathsome to the farmers’: The first element of the cpd hvimleiðr is a variant of the dat. sg. hveim (indef. pron.: ‘to everyone’). In several other texts the statement that someone is ‘abominable to everyone’ forms part of a curse or imprecation, for example in HHj 25/2 (NK 145), where Helgi tells the giantess Hrímgerðr that she is leið ... mannkyni ‘abominable to mankind’; cf. the curse in GrL ch. 2 (FSGJ 2, 193).
til ‘to’
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til (prep.): to
áræðis ‘attack’
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áræði (noun n.; °-s): courage
illt ‘evil thing’
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illr (adj.): bad, evil, unwell
skal ‘shall’
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skulu (verb): shall, should, must
vinna ‘be done’
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2. vinna (verb): perform, work
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
This stanza is introduced by the words: Hún kvað ‘She said’.
[1-2]: With the exception of the name Forað ‘Danger’ these lines are identical in wording to the lines in Feima Lv 1/1-2 (GrL 2), where the giantess Feima identifies herself in answer to the question put to her by Ketill’s son Grímr in a similar episode. On the association of giants with the north see Note to GrL 2/2, 4. In the remaining lines of this and the following stanza, Forað describes how dangerous and abominable she is to human men. In comparable terms, the giantess Hrímgerðr in HHj 19, 22 and 26 names a particular attack she made or planned in the past and describes how dangerous a future encounter with her would be.
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