Þul Hrúts 1^III

Hrútr, ofrhyrningr,         hornumskvali,
gumarr, hornglóinn         ok gjaldhróinn,
hveðurr, hornglói,         Hallinskíði,
berr, hornhróinn         ok Heimdali,
bekri, miðjungr,         blær, mǫrðr ok veðr.

Hrútr, ofrhyrningr, hornumskvali, gumarr, hornglóinn ok gjaldhróinn, hveðurr, hornglói, Hallinskíði, berr, hornhróinn ok Heimdali, bekri, miðjungr, blær, mǫrðr ok veðr.

Ram, mighty-horned one, horn-clamourer, gumarr, horn-glowing one and gjaldhróinn, roarer, horn-glowing one, Hallinskíði, berr, hornhróinn and Heimdali, bellower, middler, bleater, mǫrðr and wether.

Mss: R(44r), Tˣ(46r), C(13r), A(20r), B(9v), 744ˣ(80r-v) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Hrútr: ‘[…]rútr’ B, Hrútr 744ˣ    [2] ‑skvali: ‑skáli Tˣ, A, B    [3] gumarr: ‘gummarr’ Tˣ    [4] ok: om. Tˣ;    gjald‑: gjall‑ C    [5] hveðurr: om. Tˣ, hveðruðr A, B;    hornglói: so A, B, om. R, Tˣ, C    [7] berr: om. B;    ‑hróinn: ‘‑\h/roin’ or ‘‑\h/rom’ Tˣ, om. B    [8] ok Heimdali: hveðr, hornglóinn, heimdali Tˣ, om. B    [9] bekri: ‘berkri’ Tˣ    [10] blær: ‘blo᷎r’ Tˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 676, Skj BI, 670, Skald I, 334; SnE 1848-87, I, 588-9, II, 483, 567, 626, SnE 1931, 210, SnE 1998, I, 131.     

Notes: [All]: Other than hrútr m. ‘ram’ (l. 1), bekri m. ‘bellower’ (l. 7) and veðr m. ‘wether’ (l. 8), none of the heiti listed in this stanza occurs elsewhere as heiti for ‘ram’, though some of them are used in other sources with different referents. — [1] ofrhyrningr (m.) ‘mighty-horned one’: A hap. leg. whose first element is the prefix ofr- ‘excessive, extreme’, which is frequently used in compounds. The second is derived from horn n. ‘horn’. — [2] hornumskvali (m.) ‘horn-clamourer’: Lit. ‘clamourer with horns’ (SnE 1998, II, 316). The first element is dat. pl. of horn n. ‘horn’, and the second element is related to the weak verb skvala ‘squeal, shout, yell, clamour’ and skval n. ‘squeal, noisy talk’. This cpd is not attested elsewhere. For a similar construction in which the first element is in the dat. pl., see eggjumskarpi ‘edge-sharp one’ (Þul Sverða 4/6). — [3] gumarr: This heiti could be the same word as the first element in OSwed. gummerlamb ‘ram’ (cf. also New Norw. gumsa ‘sheep’, ModSwed. gumse ‘ram’ and ON gemla ‘one-year-old sheep’, gemlingr ‘one-year-old ram’; see AEW: gumarr). — [3] hornglóinn (m.) ‘horn-glowing one’: The second element of this cpd is related to the weak verb glóa ‘glow’. The cpd does not occur elsewhere, but in A and B this heiti appears again in the variant form hornglói (see Note to l. 5). — [4] gjaldhróinn: The meaning of this hap. leg. is not clear. The second element of the cpd, ‑hróinn, is especially problematic and earlier attempts to explain this word are conjectural (see Holthausen 1948, 129, Alexander Jóhannesson 1951-6, 229, AEW: gjaldhróinn, ‑hróinn and SnE 1998, II, 288 for tentative suggestions). See also hornhróinn (l. 7 below). — [5]: The line is defective in mss R, Tˣ, C and contains only the first of the two heiti. Since hornglói ‘horn-glowing one’ is a variant of the ram-name already mentioned in l. 3, it is possible that this heiti was added at some point in the antecedent of the A, B redaction to fill the lacuna. — [5] hveðurr (m.) ‘roarer’: A hap. leg., as is the A, B variant hveðruðr. Cf. OE hweoðerian ‘roar, bellow’ (AEW: hveðra, hveðurr). See also the related names Hveðra (Þul Trollkvenna 2/7 and Note) and Hveðrungr (Þul Jǫtna I 1/7 and Note). — [6] Hallinskíði: Probably lit. ‘one with slanting sticks’ from the adj. hallr ‘slanting, leaning to one side’ and skíð n. ‘stick of wood, ski’ (so Turville-Petre 1964, 151; for other interpretations, see AEW: Hallinskíði). The word does not occur elsewhere as a ram-heiti, but in Gylf (SnE 2005, 25) Hallinskíði is a name for the god Heimdallr. Considering that this is not the only heiti for ‘ram’ connected with the name of that god in the present þula (cf. Heimdali in l. 8), Turville-Petre (loc. cit.) suggests that Heimdallr was associated with the ram. See also Note to Glúmr Gráf 14/1, 2^I. — [7] berr: A hap. leg. that may be connected with the weak verb berja ‘strike, beat’, hence lit. ‘beater’. Cf. ModIcel. barri ‘booby’, New Norw., ModSwed. dialects barre ‘ram’ (ÍO: berr, barri 1). — [7] hornhróinn: A hap. leg. See Note to gjaldhróinn (l. 4 above). Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 316) gives the translation ‘high-horned’ here. — [8] Heimdali: According to Finnur Jónsson (LP: heimdali), this heiti is unlikely to be connected with the name of the god Heimdallr (but cf. Hallinskíði and Note to l. 6 above). If heimdali is a characterising heiti, it may be interpreted either as ‘world-arc’ or as ‘world-bow’ (the first element from heimr m. in the sense ‘world’ and the second element from dalr m. ‘bow, dale’; Hellquist 1891, 171-2). — [9] miðjungr (m.) ‘middler’: As a ram-heiti the word does not occur elsewhere, but Miðjungr is the name of a giant (see Note to Þul Jǫtna I 6/4).  — [10] blær (m.) ‘bleater’: Blær is also a sword-heiti (see Note to Þul Sverða 8/6), but it is not found elsewhere as a heiti for ‘ram’. — [10] mǫrðr: An obscure name (cf. the weak verb merja ‘crush’, hence perhaps ‘gelded one’; ÍO: mörður). Otherwise ON mǫrðr m. is ‘marten’. It is possible that mǫrðr was placed erroneously among the names for ‘ram’ because the marten was unknown in Iceland (cf. CVC: mörðr).

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
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. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Alexander Jóhannesson. 1951-6. Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2 vols. Bern: Franke.
8. Turville-Petre, Gabriel. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
9. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
10. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
11. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
13. Hellquist, Elof. 1891. ‘Bidrag till läran om den nordiska nominalbildningen’. ANF 7, 1-62, 142-74.
14. Holthausen, Ferdinand. 1948. Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altwestnordischen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ 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=113> (accessed 20 April 2024)
17. Not published: do not cite ()
18. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Jǫtna heiti I 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 707.
19. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Jǫtna heiti I 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 716.
20. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Trollkvenna heiti 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. 725.
21. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 796.
22. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 8’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 804.
23. Alison Finlay (ed.) 2012, ‘Glúmr Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa 14’ 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. 264.