Eil Þdr 23^III

Verðið ér, alls orða
oss grœr of kon mœrar
á sefreinu Sónar
sáð, vingjǫfum ráða.

Ér verðið ráða vingjǫfum, alls {sáð orða Sónar} of {kon mœrar} grœr oss á {sefreinu}.

You must decide the gifts of friendship, as {the seed of the words of Són <mythical vat>} [POETRY] about {the descendant of the land (= Jǫrð)} [= Þórr] grows for us [me] in {the mind-land} [BREAST].

Mss: R(21v), Tˣ(22r), W(46), U(27r), B(4r) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Verðið ér: so all others, verðr ei R;    alls: at Tˣ, W, en U;    orða: jarðar U    [2] oss: ‘os’ W, ‘æs’ U;    grœr: gert U;    kon: kván B;    mœrar: ‘morar’ Tˣ, mæran U    [3] ‑reinu: ‘‑reinio’ U, ‘reyne’ B    [4] sáð: sáðs Tˣ;    ráða: báðir U

Editions: Skj AI, 148, Skj BI, 139, Skald I, 76, NN §441; SnE 1848-87, I, 250-1, II, 307, 522, III, 13, SnE 1931, 93, SnE 1998, I, 13.

Context: The stanza is cited in Skm (SnE) among stanzas exemplifying kennings for ‘poetry’.

Notes: [All]: Earlier eds (Skj B; Skald; SnE 1998) assign this stanza to an otherwise lost poem about Hákon jarl, because they interpret the phrase kon mæran ‘famous descendant’ (so U) as an onomastic pun on Hákon’s name (see Note to l. 2 below). This edn follows the main ms. and takes kon mœrar ‘descendant of the land (= Jǫrð)’ as a Þórr-kenning, which is also the reason why this helmingr is edited as part of Þdr here. The subject matter – the poet asking for gifts – locates the stanza somewhere in the so-called slœmr, the concluding section of the drápa where the poet may mention the reward he expects for the poem. — [1, 3-4] sáð orða Sónar ‘the seed of the words of Són <mythical vat> [POETRY]’: This is a kenning for ‘poetry’, as the determinant Són makes clear. In Snorri’s account, Són was one of the three vats in which the giant Suttungr stored the mead of poetry (Skm, SnE 1998, I, 4). The kenning is a nýgerving, whose base-word sáð ‘seed’ is prompted by the verb grœr ‘grows’ (l. 2). Skj B combines orða ‘words’ with sefreinu to form a kenning for ‘tongue’; LP: sefrein later changes this referent to ‘breast’. Because sefrein ‘mind-land’ already means ‘breast’, orða is superfluous here, however. Equally superfluous is the determinant Sónar ‘of Són’ in Kock’s (NN §441) sefrein Sónar, which he translates as Sons strand ‘Són’s beach’. It may be easiest to combine orða with sáð Sónar to give ‘words’-seed of Són’, even if orða is superfluous here. — [2] kon mœrar ‘the descendant of the land (= Jǫrð) [= Þórr]’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; LP: konr 3; LH I, 537) adopts mæran m. acc. sg. ‘famous’ (so U) against the reading of the majority of the mss. He takes this adj. as a qualifier for the noun kon ‘descendant’, and regards the phrase as an onomastic pun on Hákon jarl’s name, mæran kon = hô-kon (mærr ‘famous’ = hôr ‘high’). He looks to Skáldatal (SnE 1848-87, III, 256, 266, 280), which lists Eilífr as one of Hákon’s poets, to confirm this interpretation. All later eds (Skald and SnE 1998, I) follow him. But as Lie (1976, 399) pointed out, the best mss have kon mœrar here, which is a kenning for Þórr. This edn follows Lie and retains the reading of mss R, W, B. Mœrar is the gen. of mœrr ‘land’ and thus a synonym of jǫrð ‘earth’, which in turn is a homonym of Jǫrð, the name of Þórr’s mother (see Lie 1976, 399). The version of the stanza that appears in ms. U may also refer to Þórr periphrastically, however. Consider the following (normalised) reading: Verðið ér en jarðar | es gert of kon mæran | á sefreinu Sónar | sáð vingjǫfum ráða (ráða is an emendation from ‘baþir’ based on the other mss). This gives the prose order Ér verðið ráða vingjǫfum; sáð Sónar es gert á sefreinu um mæran kon Jarðar ‘You must decide the gifts of friendship; the seed of Són <mythical vat> [POETRY] was made in the mind-land [BREAST] about the famous son of the earth [= Þórr]’. Hence, the helmingr given in U could certainly not belong to a now lost poem honouring Hákon jarl, as Finnur Jónsson thought, editing it as Et digt om Hakon jarl ‘A poem about Hákon jarl’ in Skj. Ms. U’s version of the stanza contains several metrical errors, however, because the alliteration in l. 2 falls on the auxiliary verb es, and the aðalhending in the same line (gert : mæran) is flawed. — [3] á sefreinu ‘in the mind-land [BREAST]’: This breast-kenning follows the ‘land of the mind’ pattern (cf. Meissner 136-7). The choice of the base-word rein ‘strip of land between two fields’ is dictated by the metaphorical clause ‘the seed … grows in the land’, which stands for ‘the poem grows in the mind’. The determinant is sefi ‘mind’. One could expect a cpd *sefareinu given the fact that sefi is an n-stem, but the first element of the cpd can be interpreted as a word-stem (sef-) rather than as the gen. form of sefi (sefa-).

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. 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.
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. LH = Finnur Jónsson. 1920-4. Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie. 3 vols. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Gad.
9. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
10. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
11. Lie, Hallvard. 1976. ‘Þórsdrápa’. KLNM 20, 397-400.
12. Internal references
13. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
14. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ 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=112> (accessed 24 April 2024)
15. Edith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2017, ‘ Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 68. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1170> (accessed 24 April 2024)
16. Not published: do not cite ()