Gestumbl Heiðr 37VIII (Heiðr 84)
Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 84 (Gestumblindi, Heiðreks gátur 37)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 451.
Hvat ‘What’
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hvat (pron.): what
mælti ‘say’
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1. mæla (verb): speak, say
í ‘into’
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í (prep.): in, into
eyra ‘the ear’
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eyra (noun n.; °eyra; eyru/eyrun, gen. eyrna): ear
áðr ‘before’
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áðr (adv.; °//): before
hann ‘he’
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hann (pron.; °gen. hans, dat. honum; f. hon, gen. hennar, acc. hana): he, she, it, they, them...
væri ‘was’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
[3] væri: var 281ˣ, 597bˣ, ‘veri’ R715ˣ
á ‘to’
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3. á (prep.): on, at
hafðr ‘brought’
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hafa (verb): have
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
Before reciting the riddle, Gestumblindi says: segðu þat þá fyrst, ef þú ert hverjum konungi vitrari ‘say first then, if you are wiser than every king’.
Cf. Vafþr 54/4-6, in which Óðinn asks the same question (differently worded, though the present l. 3 and Vafþr 54/4 are identical) to win a wisdom contest with the giant Vafþrúðnir (NK 55): hvat mælti Óðinn | áðr á bál stigi | siálfr í eyra syni? ‘what did Óðinn himself say into the ear of his son before he ascended the pyre?’. — This question bears all the hallmarks of a ‘neck riddle’, according to Taylor’s definition (1951, 1): an ‘insoluble puzzle’ whose answer is known only to the questioner and with which the protagonist hopes to ‘save his neck’. — Skj, Skald and FSGJ, with varying levels of emendation (and conjecture, on Kock’s part), attempt to make Gestumblindi’s words of introduction to this stanza (see Context above) part of the verse, but they are not metrical. Skj B places the whole stanza in square brackets.
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