Anon (TGT) 28^III

En skinnbjarta skortir
— skap kannask mér svanna —
— dýrs hon hætt at hváru —
hálmmein Njǫrun steina.

En {skinnbjarta Njǫrun steina} skortir {hálmmein}; skap svanna kannask mér; hon [e]s at hváru hætt dýr.

But {the bright-skinned Njǫrun <goddess> of stones} [WOMAN] lacks {straw-harm} [BLADE]; the temperament of the woman is known to me; she is in any case a dangerous animal.

Mss: W(108) (TGT)

Readings: [4] hálmmein: ‘halm æín’ W

Editions: Skj AI, 600, Skj BI, 600, Skald I, 292, NN §§ 1233B, 1853A; SnE 1818, 327, SnE 1848, 194, SnE 1848-87, II, 158-9, III, 148, TGT 1884, 26, 102, 213-14, TGT 1927, 74, 104.

Context: Cited as an example of metaphora (‘metaphor’), which Óláfr defines as follows (TGT 1927, 74): Metaphora er framfæring orða eða hlutu í aðra merking ‘Metaphor is the transfer of words or things into another meaning’. In this instance, the woman in question is called an animal.

Notes: [All]: The fifth unattributed dróttkvætt fragment in TGT whose subject is a woman. Cf. Note to Anon (TGT) 6 [All]. — [1] skortir ‘lacks’: Skorta is construed impersonally with two accusatives here (e-n skortir e-t). — [3] hon [e]s … hætt dýr ‘she is … a dangerous animal’: This interpretation is implicit in Óláfr’s comments to this stanza (TGT 1927, 74): Hér er dýr kǫlluð konan ‘Here the woman is called an animal’. Without reference to the prose context, dýr could be understood as f. nom. sg. of dýrr adj. ‘expensive’, hence ‘she is dangerously expensive’ or ‘she is precious’ (without hætt), the interpretation adopted by some eds (TGT 1884; NN §1233B; Skj B). — [3] hætt ‘dangerous’: Both Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884) and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) take hætt with hálmmein/hállmeins, i.e. ‘dangerous fire’, but this creates a tripartite l. 3. — [4] hálmmein ‘straw-harm [BLADE]’: Emendation is justified as W, the only witness here, frequently omits single letters which are otherwise preserved in A and B. Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, I, 332) suggested the emendation included here. The present interpretation is based on the use of a scythe or blade for cutting hay (cf. the Strøm whetstone (Run KJ50/2^VI; RäF 110-13) h͡ah͡askaþih͡aþuligi ‘may it harm the hay [but] lie [peacefully] in a fight’, referring to the blade sharpened by the stone). This produces the sense that although the woman lacks a blade, she is nevertheless dangerous. Although a large number of kennings for ‘fire’ follow a similar pattern, they all have a determinant referring to wood or something wooden (wood, tree, forest, hall, branch; cf. Meissner 100-1), rather than ‘straw’, as here. (b) Most eds nevertheless interpret hálmmein ‘straw-harm’ as a kenning for ‘fire’. In this reading, the sense would then be metaphorical: eldr, for example, is used elsewhere to refer to passionate feelings (ONP: eldr 17). Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 214) suggests an ofljóst construction involving the referent ‘fire’: fire is also birti ‘brightness’ which in turn is homonymous with skírleikr, which can also mean ‘purity, chastity’, producing the sense that the woman is unchaste. Finnur Jónsson adopts this interpretation in LP: halmein). However, birti is not recorded with the sense ‘fire’ (rather, ‘brightness’; cf. LP, Fritzner, ONP); and it is not included in the þulur among heiti for ‘fire’ (Þul Elds).  (c) Kock (NN §1233B) also construes a kenning for ‘fire’ but emends to hallmeins ‘of the hall-harm [FIRE]’ by analogy with other kennings such as lífgalli hallar ‘life-harm of the hall [FIRE]’ (Sturl Hrafn 11/4^II), but a cpd ‘hall-harm’ would be ON hallarmein (hypermetrical) rather than hallmein. He takes this with Njǫrun as a kenning for ‘woman’ (cf. Meissner 417) and translates: Lider än den blonda kvinnan … brist på ädla stenar, är hon farligt dyr i alla fall ‘Even if the blonde woman suffers a lack of precious stones, she is nonetheless dangerously expensive’. This reading requires two emendations, and Njǫrun steina is elsewhere attested in this metrical position as a kenning for ‘woman’ (TorfiV Lv 1/6^V (Harð 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. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
4. 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.
5. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
6. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
7. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
8. RäF = Krause, Wolfgang and Herbert Jankuhn. 1966. Die Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Kl., Dritte Folge 65. 2 vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
9. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
10. 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.
11. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
12. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
13. 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.
14. SnE 1818 = Rask, Rasmus Kristian, ed. 1818a. Snorra Edda ásamt Skáldu og þarmeð fylgjandi ritgjörðum. Stockholm: Elmen.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 25 April 2024)
17. Tarrin Wills (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Third Grammatical Treatise 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. 541.
18. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Elds heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 920. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3234> (accessed 25 April 2024)
19. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Sturla Þórðarson, Hrafnsmál 11’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 736.
20. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Harðar saga 1 (Torfi Valbrandsson, Lausavísa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 919.