Þul Sáðs 1^III

Akr, ax, sæði,         ǫgn, barr ok halmr,
áll, efstakné,         eigin, skotblað,
blað, kné ok rót,         bygg, rugr ok sáð,
korn, ginhafri,         korki, barlak.

Akr, ax, sæði, ǫgn, barr ok halmr, áll, efstakné, eigin, skotblað, blað, kné ok rót, bygg, rugr ok sáð, korn, ginhafri, korki, barlak.

Crop, ear of corn, seed, chaff, barley and straw, sprout, uppermost member, shoot, shoot-blade, blade, knee and root, barley, rye and grain, corn, false-oats, korki and barlak.

Mss: A(21v) (SnE)

Editions: Skj AI, 690, Skj BI, 680, Skald I, 344; SnE 1848-87, II, 493.

Notes: [All]: Of the twenty heiti for ‘grain’ given in this stanza, nine never appear in other Old Norse poetic sources: ǫgn f. ‘chaff’ (l. 2), áll m. ‘sprout’, efstakné n. ‘uppermost member’ (l. 3), eigin n. ‘shoot’, skotblað n. ‘shoot-blade’ (l. 4), kné n. ‘knee’ (l. 5), ginhafri m. ‘false-oats’ (l. 7), korki m. (l. 8), barlak (l. 8). Many of these are hap. leg. The heiti ǫgn ‘chaff’ does occur in the rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: ǫgn). — [2] barr (m.) ‘barley’: In Alv this heiti is said to belong to the language of the gods, while bygg, the common term for ‘barley’ in Old Norse, allegedly comes from the language of human beings (Alv 32/2, NK 129): Bygg heitir með mǫnnom, | enn barr með goðom ‘It is called bygg among men, but barr among the gods’ (see Kommentar III, 366). — [3] áll (m.) ‘sprout’: Not otherwise attested with this meaning in Old Norse, but see New Norw., ModSwed. ål ‘sprout’ (AEW: áll 2). — [3] efstakné (n.) ‘uppermost member’: A hap. leg. derived from the adj. efstr sup. ‘uppermost, last’ and kné f. ‘knee’. The meaning of the word is unclear, perhaps denoting the uppermost part of a plant (see Note to kné, l. 5 below). Alternatively, kné is used here in a metaphorical sense with the meaning ‘cognate degree’, hence ‘the last generation (or offspring)’. That interpretation is suggested by the next heiti in the list, eigin, which is homonymous with eigin (adj. f.) ‘one’s own’. — [4] eigin (n.) ‘shoot’: A hap. leg. Cf. New Norw. eigind, ModSwed. dialects eien ‘the first sprouts of corn’ (cf. áll ‘sprout’ in l. 3), MLG īne ‘needle’. The original meaning is perhaps ‘sharp point’ (cf. ÍO: eigin). See also Note to l. 3 above. — [4] skotblað (n.) ‘shoot-blade’: A hap. leg. According to CVC, skotblað is ‘the sheath of an ear of corn before it opens’. The sense of this word can be reconstructed from New Norw. skotblad, which is øvste blad på eit framskytande aks, i. e. ‘the uppermost leaf [i.e. husk] on an ear of corn before it opens’ (so Heggstad et al. 2008: skotblad; LP: skotblað). — [5] kné (n.) ‘knee’: See also efstakné ‘uppermost member’ (l. 3 above). As a name for ‘grain’, kné is otherwise unattested, but the sequence blað, kné ok rót ‘blade, knee and root’ suggests that kné here is a term for a part of a plant. On the possible relation to knefill ‘post, pole’, see Dronke (1969, 133). — [7] ginhafri (m.) ‘false-oats’: A hap. leg. This heiti most likely designates a kind of oats (hafri). The word might be related to Orkney ginn ‘a kind of wild oats’ (also used as the first element in compounds, e.g ginnowy ‘poor oats’; see Marwick 1929, 54 and Grøn 1927, 38-9) and ON ginn m. ‘deceit’. Finnur Jónsson (LP: ginhafri) derives the first part of the word from gin n. ‘mouth’ (of beasts) and hence interprets this heiti as ‘gaping oats’. — [8] korki (m.): A hap. leg. Most likely a loanword, cf. Shetland korka ‘oats’ < OIr. coirce, corca ‘oats’ (Bugge 1865a, 92-4; ÍO: korki 1), or perhaps a foreign word, since there is no evidence that this word was ever used in Iceland (that applies to the next heiti in this line as well). However, according to LP: korki, this heiti may be related to New Norw. korkje ‘shield lichen’ (Parmelia saxatilis), a kind of lichen used as dye-stuff (cf. Aasen 2000: korkje). — [8] barlak: A hap. leg. This word is borrowed from Old English (< OE bærlic ‘barley’; cf. Bugge 1875, 229 and ÍO: barlak), whereas the Old Norse common word for ‘barley’ is bygg (l. 6 above).

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. Finnur Jónsson. 1926-8. Ordbog til de af samfund til udg. af gml. nord. litteratur udgivne Rímur samt til de af Dr. O. Jiriczek udgivne Bósarímur. SUGNL 51. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
8. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
9. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
10. Dronke, Ursula, ed. and trans. 1969. The Poetic Edda. I: Heroic Poems. Oxford: Clarendon.
11. Bugge, Sophus. 1875. ‘Biskop Bjarne Kolbeinssøn og Snorres Edda’. ÅNOH, 209-46.
12. Grøn, Fredrik. 1927. Om kostholdet i Norge indtil 1500. Oslo: Dybwad.
13. Marwick, Hugh. 1929. The Orkney Norn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14. Bugge, Sophus. 1865a. ‘Sjældne ord i norrön skaldskab’. Tidskrift for philologi og pædagogik 6, 87-103.
15. Aasen 2000 = Kruken, Kristoffer and Terje Aarset, eds. 2000. Ivar Aasen: Ordbog over det norske folkesprog. New edition. Originally published 1850. Oslo: Det norske samlaget.
16. Internal references
17. Not published: do not cite ()