SkrautO Frag 2^III

Bǫls munat bǫr at dylja
berg-Þórs nǫsum órum.

Munat at dylja bǫr bǫls {berg-Þórs} ... nǫsum órum.

It will not be possible to hide the misfortune {of the rock-Þórr <god>} [GIANT/DWARF] from the tree ... our nostrils.

Mss: W(108) (TGT)

Editions: Skj AI, 416, Skj BI, 386, Skald I, 192, NN §§901, 2989G, 3097K; SnE 1818, 328, SnE 1848, 194, SnE 1848-87, II, 160-1, III, 148, TGT 1884, 27, 103, 216, TGT 1927, 75, 105.

Context: Cited as an example of a kenning for ‘giant’ or ‘dwarf’ as part of an extended description of the kenning as metaphora. It is not clear from the prose whether Óláfr believed it to refer to a giant, a dwarf or both (TGT 1927, 75): Svá eru ok jǫtnar ok dvergar kallaðir menn eða konungar bjarga eða steina sem Skraut-Oddr kvað ‘Thus giants and dwarfs are also called men or kings of rocks or stones, as Skraut-Oddr said’.

Notes: [1] bǫr ‘the tree’: Probably the base-word of a kenning for ‘man’ (see LP: bǫrr). Kock (NN §901) emends bǫr (m. acc./dat. sg.) to bǫrr (nom. sg.) to make this the subject, i.e. ‘the [man] will not deny …’, which is plausible given the W scribe’s tendency to omit final -r (especially in geminates). However, this is clearly not a free-standing couplet, and there is no need to presume that the subject is included in the cited portion. This edn interprets the acc. as the object of dylja ‘hide’. — [2] berg-Þórs ‘of the rock-Þórr <god> [GIANT/DWARF]’: Here taken with bǫls (cf. NN §901), but without the full syntactic context it may have another role (elsewhere in the corpus bǫl frequently forms part of a kenning; e.g. Þjóð Haustl 18, Bjbp Jóms 26/4^I, Sturl Hákfl 4/4^II). Kock (NN §3097K) interprets this as a pers. n., hence ‘Bergþórr’s misfortune’; however, this contradicts the prose context which clearly refers to a kenning here.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
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. 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. SnE 1818 = Rask, Rasmus Kristian, ed. 1818a. Snorra Edda ásamt Skáldu og þarmeð fylgjandi ritgjörðum. Stockholm: Elmen.
10. Internal references
11. Emily Lethbridge (ed.) 2012, ‘Bjarni byskup Kolbeinsson, Jómsvíkingadrápa 26’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 982.
12. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Sturla Þórðarson, Hákonarflokkr 4’ 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, pp. 748-9.
13. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng 18’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 459.