Forað Lv 1^VIII (Ket 17)

Forað ek heiti;         fædd var ek norðarla,
hraust í Hrafnseyju,         hvimleið búmönnum,
ör til áræðis,         hvatki er illt skal vinna.

Ek heiti Forað; ek var fædd norðarla, hraust í Hrafnseyju, hvimleið búmönnum, ör til áræðis, hvatki er illt skal vinna.

I am named Forað; I was born in northern parts, valiant in Hrafnsey, loathsome to the farmers, swift to attack, whatsoever evil thing shall be done.

Mss: 343a(56v), 471(53v) (Ket)

Readings: [5] ör: so 471, órr 343a    [6] hvatki er: hvat 471

Editions: Skj AII, 282, Skj BII, 303-4, Skald II, 161, NN §2391; FSN 2, 127, FSGJ 2, 169,  Anderson 1990, 52-3, 98, 438; Edd. Min. 80.

Context: This stanza is introduced by the words: Hún kvað ‘She said’.

Notes: [1-2]: With the exception of the name Forað ‘Danger’ these lines are identical in wording to the lines in Feima Lv 1/1-2 (GrL 2), where the giantess Feima identifies herself in answer to the question put to her by Ketill’s son Grímr in a similar episode. On the association of giants with the north see Note to GrL 2/2, 4. In the remaining lines of this and the following stanza, Forað describes how dangerous and abominable she is to human men. In comparable terms, the giantess Hrímgerðr in HHj 19, 22 and 26 names a particular attack she made or planned in the past and describes how dangerous a future encounter with her would be. — [3] í Hrafnseyju ‘in Hrafnsey’: Lit. ‘Raven’s island’. Unidentified p. n. — [4] hvimleið búmönnum ‘loathsome to the farmers’: The first element of the cpd hvimleiðr is a variant of the dat. sg. hveim (indef. pron.: ‘to everyone’). In several other texts the statement that someone is ‘abominable to everyone’ forms part of a curse or imprecation, for example in HHj 25/2 (NK 145), where Helgi tells the giantess Hrímgerðr that she is leið ... mannkyni ‘abominable to mankind’; cf. the curse in GrL ch. 2 (FSGJ 2, 193).

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
8. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
9. Internal references
10. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gríms saga loðinkinna’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 288. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=76> (accessed 26 April 2024)
11. Not published: do not cite ()
12. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Gríms saga loðinkinna 2 (Feima Hrímnisdóttir, Lausavísa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 290.