Anon Mv II 15^VII

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Máríuvísur II 15’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 711.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

[5-6]: Line 5 is corrupt. There is no internal rhyme, and, furthermore, the kenning for ‘woman’, dís driftar ‘the dís <minor female deity> of the snowdrift’, is incomplete. Driftar ‘of the snowdrift’ must be part of a kenning for ‘silver’, but it requires an additional determinant. Skj B suggests the following reading: Máríu arms dís dýr | driptar sá, hvar stóð skript, i.e., dís arms driptar sá, hvar dýr skript Máríu stóð ‘the dís of the arm’s snowdrift (i.e. ‘silver’) saw where the precious effigy of Mary stood’. That reading is metrically and syntactically impossible. Kock emends móðurinnar ‘of the mother’ (l. 5) to Mardallar ‘of Mardöll’ (another name for the goddess Freyja) and construes the kenning as follows: dýr dís Mardallar driptar ‘the precious dís of Mardöll’s <= Freyja> snowdrift’, in which ‘Mardöll’s <= Freyja> snowdrift (i.e. tears)’ equals ‘gold’. According to myth, Freyja wept tears of gold (SnE 1998, I, 43-4). While this suggestion is admittedly attractive, it is out of keeping with the other kenning constructions in the poem (it is too complex and presupposes an intimate knowledge of ON myth or poetry containing such imagery).