Forað Lv 5^VIII (Ket 25)

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.

Mss: 343a(56v), 471(54r) (Ket)

Readings: [3] um: om. 343a, of 471

Editions: Skj AII, 284, Skj BII, 305, Skald II, 161; FSN 2, 130, FSGJ 2, 172;  Anderson 1990, 54, 99; Edd. Min. 82.

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’.

Notes: [All]: 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]: 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 2-6^III; 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 B252^VI). 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). — [3] gríðr ‘the giantess’: This word is often used as a heiti for a troll-woman or giantess, generally in kennings for ‘wolf’, ‘axe’ and ‘mind’ (cf. LP: Gríðr). In Skm (SnE 1998, I, 24) Gríðr is the name of a giantess who is said to be the mother of Óðinn’s son Viðarr; her name also occurs in Eil Þdr 10/8^III. — [3] um grípr ‘grips’: Ms. 471 reads ‘of’, the more archaic pleonastic particle later (post-1250) replaced by um, and this edn has normalised to the later particle here; cf. Note to Ásm 1/3, 5.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
9. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
10. 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.
11. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
12. Internal references
13. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 2 May 2024)
14. Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 10’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 96.
15. Not published: do not cite ()
16. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 434.
17. Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 1 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 16.
18. Richard L. Harris (ed.) 2017, ‘Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis 18 (Hergunnr, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 510.