Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Forað Lv 5VIII (Ket 25)

Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 25 (Forað, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 577.

ForaðLausavísur
456

text and translation

Seyði þínum mun ek snúa         en sjálfum þér gnúa,
unz þik gríðr um grípr;         ok mun hon koma með sínu gjálfri.

Ek mun snúa seyði þínum en gnúa þér sjálfum, unz gríðr um grípr þik; ok hon mun koma með gjálfri sínu.
 
‘I will turn your cooking-fire [astray] and crush you yourself, until the giantess grips you; and she will come with her roaring.

notes and context

After Forað has described her itinerary along the coast of Norway, she asks Ketill what he intends to do, to which he replies that he is going to cook himself a meal of meat (slátr). After this prose exchange Forað utters a threat in the form of a stanza, which is introduced with the words: Hún kvað ‘She said’.

The first two lines of the stanza have end-rhyme (snúa : gnúa), appropriately for a curse or imprecation, while l. 3 also produces a rhyming effect through the repeated grí- in two successive words. Some previous eds regard l. 4 as a later addition and either omit it (Edd. Min.) or place it within square brackets (Skj B). Kock (Skald) retains it (as does Rafn) but ‘improves’ the line by altering the word order, changing the verb to a subj. form and omitting the pron. hon: ok með gjálfri sínu komi. Kock also changes grípr (l. 3) to the subj. form gripi. The reason for the reversal of word order in l. 4 is Kock’s belief that the main alliterating word (here gjálfri) in the original form of any long-line could not have occupied the penultimate and ultimate syllables of the half-line (cf. NN §2402). — All the threats that Forað utters in this stanza have parallels in the behaviour of giants as depicted in other texts: thus the giant Þjazi prevents the fire, which the three gods Óðinn, Hœnir and Loki kindle in a cooking-pit, from roasting an ox, until they promise him the choice portion of the meat (Þjóð Haustl 2-6III; SnE 1998, I, 1). In both cases the fire (and the cooking-pit) are referred to as seyðir (LP: seyðir, cf. l. 1 and the runic spell Run N B252VI). Giants grapple with their opponents and crush them in their grasp (cf. the threat against Atli which the giantess Hrímgerðr utters in HHj 22 (see Kommentar IV, 506-7 to HHj 22/4-5 and HjǪ 18-19).

readings

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

editions and texts

Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 8. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ketill hœngs saga V 10: AII, 284, BII, 305, Skald II, 161; FSN 2, 130, FSGJ 2, 172;  Anderson 1990, 54, 99; Edd. Min. 82.

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Stanza/chapter/text segment

Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.

Information tab

Interactive tab

The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.

Full text tab

This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.

Chapter/text segment

This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.