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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (Vǫlsa) 8I

Wilhelm Heizmann (ed.) 2012, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Vǫlsa þáttr 8’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1100.

Anonymous LausavísurLausavísur from Vǫlsa þáttr
789

Hleifr væri mér         hálfu sæmri
þykkr ok økkvinn         ok þó víðr
en vǫlsi þessi         á verkdǫgum.
Þiggi Maurnir         þetta blæti!
En þú, þý hjóna,         þrýstu at þér Vǫlsa!

Hleifr væri mér hálfu sæmri, þykkr ok økkvinn ok þó víðr, en þessi vǫlsi á verkdǫgum. Þiggi Maurnir þetta blæti! En þú, þý hjóna, þrýstu at þér Vǫlsa!

A loaf of bread would be twice as suitable for me, thick and bulging and yet broad, as this rod on workdays. May Maurnir receive this offering! But you, maid of the household, you thrust Vǫlsi onto yourself!

Mss: Flat(122ra) (Flat); 292ˣ(55r) (Vǫlsa)

Readings: [2] sæmri: smærri 292ˣ    [7, 8] Þiggi Maurnir þetta: abbrev. as ‘.þ. m. þ.’ Flat

Editions: Skj AII, 220, Skj BII, 238, Skald II, 123, NN §1451 Anm.; Flat 1860-8, II, 334 (Vǫlsa); Guðbrandur Vigfússon 1860, 136, CPB II, 382, Edd. Min. 124, Schröder 1933, 81-2.

Context: The servant takes Vǫlsi and speaks a stanza.

Notes: [1-4]: Cf. 4/2-3, where the bread of Edda, mother of the race of servants, is described in very similar terms as øcqvinn hleif, þungan ok þyccan ‘bulging loaf, heavy and thick’ (NK 280; Dronke 1997, 217; Kommentar III, 533-4). Dronke refers in this context to the Old English Riddle no. 45 (Krapp and Dobbie 1936, 205), which depicts the rising of dough as an analogue of sexual tumescence. — [3-4]: This pair of half-lines is placed in brackets or in a footnote by previous eds, since st. 8 has one pair more than is normal in the Vǫlsa stanzas, but the content gives no grounds for that. Cf. Note to st. 9 [All]. — [3] økkvinn ‘bulging’: Rendered as tæt og tung, klæget ‘dense and heavy, doughy’ (LP: økkvinn), fuld af avner ‘full of fibre’ (Skj B), degig ‘doughy’ (NN §1451 Anm.), grob ‘coarse’ (Kommentar III, 533-4).

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. 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.
  6. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
  7. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
  8. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
  9. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
  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. Dronke, Ursula, ed. and trans. 1997. The Poetic Edda. II: Mythological Poems. Oxford: Clarendon.
  12. Schröder, Franz Rolf. 1933. Quellenbuch zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte. Trübners philologische Bibliothek 14. Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.
  13. Internal references
  14. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Vǫlsa þáttr’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=28> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  15. Not published: do not cite ()
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