Hallg Frag 1^III

Snýr á sókndreyra
sveita glóðheitum;
allr er salr sollinn
sanda dreyrblandinn.

Snýr glóðheitum sveita á sókndreyra; {sollinn salr sanda} er allr dreyrblandinn.

Ember-hot blood snows on attack-blood; {the swollen hall of sands} [SEA] is all mixed with blood.

Mss: 743ˣ(94v), 2368ˣ(126) (LaufE)

Editions: SnE 1848, 238; LaufE 1979, 388, Jón Helgason 1966a, 180.

Context: The helmingr is cited to illustrate the use of the phrase salr sanda ‘hall of sands’ to refer to the sea.

Notes: [1] snýr ‘snows’: It is assumed here that this is the 3rd pers. sg. pres. indic. of *snjóa, which is attested only in this form and in the p. p. snivinn: see SnSt Ht 62/1 and the discussion there. See also Eyv Lv 12/1, 4^I snýr á Svǫlnis vôru … at miðju sumri ‘it is snowing on the spouse of Svǫlnir <= Óðinn> [= Jǫrð (jǫrð ‘earth’)] … in the middle of the summer’. The alternative is to identify snýr as the 3rd pers. sg. pres. indic. of snúa ‘turn’ (which governs the dat., the case of sveita ‘blood’), which may be used impersonally (hence ‘is turned’), though there do not appear to be any attested examples of the impersonal use of snúa with á ‘on’. In either event, the sense of ll. 1-2 appears to be that blood is piled upon blood, meaning that there is great slaughter. Jón Helgason (1966a, 180) very tentatively suggests that sókndreyra may be a corruption of Sóknreyra: Sókn was the former name of an island in Norway (see Heggstad et al. 2008: sókn 8), and ‘the fastener (reyri) of Sókn’ would then be a kenning for ‘sea’ (with *reyrir extrapolated from the weak verb reyra ‘wind around’). The meaning of ll. 1-2 would be that blood fell upon the sea. — [2] sveita ‘blood’: The word means ‘sweat’, but it is a common heiti for ‘blood’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
3. LaufE 1979 = Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 1979. Edda Magnúsar Ólafssonar (Laufás Edda). RSÁM 13. Vol. I of Two Versions of Snorra Edda from the 17th Century. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977-9.
4. Jón Helgason. 1966a. ‘Verse aus der Laufás-Edda’. In Rudolph et al. 1966, 175-80.
5. Internal references
6. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, Lausavísur 12’ 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. 231.
7. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 62’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1173.