Þul Sjóvar 1^III

Sær, sílægja,         salt, ægir, haf,
lǫgr, sumr, lœgir,         lagastafr ok vágr,
gjallr, gnap, geimi,         gnarr, svífr ok marr,
súgr, sog, sami,         svelgr, rǫst ok fjǫrðr.

Sær, sílægja, salt, ægir, haf, lǫgr, sumr, lœgir, lagastafr ok vágr, gjallr, gnap, geimi, gnarr, svífr ok marr, súgr, sog, sami, svelgr, rǫst ok fjǫrðr.

Sea, ever-lying one, salt, the main, ocean, liquid, the swim, calm one, waters’ foundation and bay, clamouring one, towering one, extensive one, murmurer, rocker and mere, sucker, sucking one, unchanging one, swallower, current and fjord.

Mss: R(43r), Tˣ(45r), C(12v), A(19r), B(9r), 744ˣ(71v-72r) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Sær: ‘[…]ærr’ B, ‘Særr’ 744ˣ;    sílægja: ‘[…]ía’ B, ‘býlgia’ 744ˣ    [3] sumr: ‘somr’ Tˣ, ‘sum[…]’ B, sumr 744ˣ;    lœgir: ‘[…]ir’ B, ‘le᷎gir’ 744ˣ    [4] lagastafr: so A, ‘lꜹgr stop’ R, ‘laugr stop’ Tˣ, ‘stop’ C, lagstafr B;    vágr: corrected from vargr above the line Tˣ, vǫgr B    [5] gjallr: gjaldr A, B;    gnap: gnap gap A, ‘gna[…] gap’ B, ‘gnap gap’ 744ˣ    [6] gnarr: gnár C, ‘gna[…]’ B, gnarr 744ˣ;    svífr: svipr C;    ok: om. Tˣ, C;    marr: mar Tˣ, B    [7] sog sami: so C, A, ‘sogsami’ R, Tˣ, ‘sogsa[…]e’ B, ‘sogsame’ 744ˣ    [8] ok: om. Tˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 668, Skj BI, 666, Skald I, 330, NN §3138; SnE 1848-87, I, 573-4, II, 479, 562, 622, SnE 1931, 205, SnE 1998, I, 123-4.

Notes: [1] sær, sílægja ‘sea, ever-lying one’: The same pair of heiti from ‘the language of men’ and ‘the language of gods’ opens the list of the sea-names in Alv 24/1-2 (NK 127) Sær heitir með mǫnnom, | enn sílægia með goðom ‘It is called sær among men and sílægja among the gods’, but the latter name is not found elsewhere. Presumably, the word is a euphemism and most likely means ‘one ever-lying still’, from sí- ‘ever’ (intensifying prefix) and the strong verb liggja ‘lie’ (cf. AEW: silægja; Meissner 1924, 136), alternatively interpreted as sil-ægja, from sil ‘slowly flowing water’ and ægir ‘sea’. Cf. also Shetland Norn sjologa ‘mist lying over the sea’ (< *sjá-lægja lit. ‘sea-lying’); however, in compounds sjór/sær never occurs as si-/sí- (see Kommentar III, 352-3). — [2] ægir (m.) ‘the main’: This heiti for ‘sea’ is also the name of the personification of the sea, the sea-giant Ægir, in Old Norse myth (see Note to st. 4 [All] and Introduction to Þul Waves). — [3] sumr (m.) ‘the swim’: A hap. leg. Perhaps from the strong verb svimma ‘swim’ (cf.  New Norw. sum ‘swam’, Shetland Norn sum ‘flood, swimming’), or else related to ODan. sum ‘quiet’ (see AEW: sumr; ÍO: sum(u)r 1). If the latter, sumr would mean ‘calm one’ (cf. sílægja ‘ever-lying one’, l. 1 above and the next heiti, lœgir ‘calm one’, derived from the strong verb liggja ‘lie’). — [4] lagastafr (m.) ‘waters’ foundation’: In R and Tˣ this obscure cpd is treated as two words, lǫgr and ‘stop’ which must be incorrect, since lagastafr is also known from Alv 24/5 and 32/5 (NK 127, 129), where it is given as a name for both ‘sea’ and ‘barley’ (bygg) in the language of the elves (álfar). This polysemy is difficult to understand, and it has been suggested that the name possibly refers to the components of beer prepared from water and barley, and hence means ‘water/drink-substance’ (from lǫgr ‘liquid’ and stafr ‘substance’; Güntert 1921, 147-8). However, stafr never occurs in this sense. Thus the meaning is perhaps rather ‘liquid-foundation’, referring to the sea as a source of all sorts of water (Grundlage der Flüssigkeiten; see Kommentar III, 353-6 for a detailed discussion of this heiti). — [5] gjallr (m.) ‘clamouring one’: As a term for ‘sea’ the heiti does not occur elsewhere, but it is also mentioned in Þul Skjaldar 2/1 and Þul Sverða 1/6. — [6] gnarr (m.) ‘murmurer’: A hap. leg., cf. New Norw. gnarr ‘cold gust’ (LP: gnarr; AEW: gnarr). For the meaning ‘murmurer’, see AEW: gnerr. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) adopts the C variant gnár ‘rising, towering one’ (see ÍO: -gnár). — [6] svífr (m.) ‘rocker’: A hap. leg. derived from the strong verb svífa ‘drift’ (LP: svífr translated as den bølgende ‘the rocking one’). — [7] sog, sami ‘sucking one, unchanging one’: So C, A. These heiti are given as one word in mss R and Tˣ and B (744ˣ). For sog n., cf. aðsog and útsog ‘inrush and outsuck of the surf’ (CVC: sog), from the strong verb súga ‘suck’. Sami m. is a hap. leg. which most likely means ‘unchanging one’ (from the adj. samr ‘same’; cf. inn sami ‘the same’). — [8] svelgr (m.) ‘swallower’: Perhaps a whirlpool or current (= rǫst ‘current’; the next heiti), but the word does not occur in poetry as a sea-heiti. See also Þul Sverða 9/6.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. 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.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
7. 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.
8. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
9. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
10. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
11. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
12. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
13. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
14. Güntert, Hermann. 1921. Von der Sprache der Götter und Geister. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer.
15. Meissner, Rudolf. 1924. ‘Die Sprache der Götter, Riesen und Zwerge in den Alvíssmál’. ZDA 61, 128-40.
16. Internal references
17. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 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. 790.
18. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sverða heiti 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 806.
19. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Skjaldar 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. 825.
20. Not published: do not cite ()
21. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Heiti for waves’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 996. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=2988> (accessed 1 May 2024)