Anon (TGT) 31^III

Hár rauð hvassa geira
— hneig þjóð í gras — blóði.

Hár rauð hvassa geira blóði; þjóð hneig í gras.

The high one reddened sharp spears in blood; people sank into the grass.

Mss: A(7r) (TGT)

Editions: Skj AI, 599, Skj BI, 599, Skald I, 292; SnE 1848, 195, SnE 1848-87, II, 166-7, 422, III, 149, TGT 1884, 107, 222, TGT 1927, 79, 106.

Context: Cited as a second example of antonomasia (TGT 1927, 78): Antonomasia setr sameiginligt nafn fyrir eiginligu nafni ‘Antonomasia puts a common noun in place of a proper noun’. The first type of antonomasia is af ǫnd ‘by spirit’, exemplified by Ólhv Frag 7. The present stanza exemplifies antonomasia where the substitution is af líkam ‘by the body’ (corresponding to a corpore in Donatus; Holtz 1981, 669), i.e. a word for a physical attribute replaces a proper name.

Notes: [All]: The fragment resembles Anon (TGT) 3, in particular the clause laut herr í gras ‘the people sank into the grass’. — [All]: Antonomasia occurs here in the use of hár ‘the high/tall one’ to refer to a particular person. — [1] hár ‘the high one’: Hár is normally a heiti for Óðinn, but Óláfr states in the prose that it refers here to King Hringr (TGT 1927, 79): Hér er hár kallaðr konungrinn, ok er þar óeiginlig liking milli þess nafns hár ok eiginligs nafns Hrings konungs ‘Here the king is called hár [the high one], and there is an improper comparison between the noun hár and the proper name of King Hringr’. The identity of this Hringr is uncertain. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 222) suggests Hringr Dagsson, king of Hedmark (ÍF 27, 46) and father of Dagr Hringsson who fought with Óláfr helgi at Stiklestad (1030). However, King Hringr Dagsson is not connected with any battles in the sources. Another possibility is Sigurðr hringr ‘Ring’ Randvésson, in which case the couplet may describe the mid-C8th battle of Brávellir (cf. ÍF 35, 58-69 and Note to SnSt Lv 5/1).

References

1. Bibliography
2. TGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
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. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
5. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
7. ÍF 35 = Danakonunga sǫgur. Ed. Bjarni Guðnason. 1982.
8. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
9. Holtz, Louis, ed. 1981. Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical: Étude sur l’Ars Donari et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe siècle) et édition critique. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.
10. Internal references
11. Guðrún Nordal (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Lausavísur’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1378> (accessed 27 April 2024)
12. Tarrin Wills (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Third Grammatical Treatise 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 539.