Eil Þdr 19III/8 — nestum ‘the provisions’
Bifðisk hǫll, þás hǫfði
Heiðreks of kom breiðu
und fletbjarnar fornan
fótlegg Þrasis veggjar.
Ítr gulli laust Ullar
jótrs vegtaugar þrjóti
meina niðr í miðjan
mest bígyrðil nestum.
Hǫll bifðisk, þás of kom breiðu hǫfði Heiðreks veggjar Þrasis und fornan fótlegg fletbjarnar. Ítr gulli Ullar laust mest nestum meina niðr í miðjan bígyrðil þrjóti jótrs vegtaugar.
The hall shook when [he] brought the broad head of the Heiðrekr <legendary king> of the wall of Þrasir <dwarf> [STONE > GIANT = Geirrøðr] under the old leg of the bench-bear [HOUSE > PILLAR]. The glorious stepfather of Ullr <god> [= Þórr] struck the provisions of harm [PIECE OF IRON] with full force down into the middle of the girdle of the defier of the molar of the way of the fishing-line [SEA > STONE > GIANT].
readings
[8] nestum: ‘nezv’ R, W, ‘nezo’ Tˣ, nestu 2368ˣ
notes
[7, 8] nestum meina ‘the provisions of harm [PIECE OF IRON]’: In the mss, the stanza ends with (normalised) nestu. Because the previous stanzas consistently described the projectile thrown by Geirrøðr and Þórr through metaphors of eating and drinking (segi ‘shred’ st. 16/6, rauðbiti ‘red bite’ st. 17/2, lyptisylg ‘raised drink’ st. 18/3), it is natural to look for a kenning from the domain of food here as well, and nest n. or nesti n. ‘provisions for a journey’ is an obvious candidate for the base-word in such a kenning. That base-word must be in the dat. case, however, which forces emendation to nestum dat. pl. (adopted in the present edn) or nesti dat. sg. Interpreting nestum as ‘provisions’ combined with the determinant meina ‘of harm’ brings this kenning in line with the kennings used for the iron projectile in the previous stanzas. Previous eds have taken nestu as an oblique case of an otherwise unattested noun *nesta from nist, nisti ‘needle in a brooch, fibula’. This allows them to construe the kenning nestu meina ‘needle of harm’ for a red-hot iron bar that Þórr allegedly hurls at Geirrøðr (so Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1851, 25; Finnur Jónsson 1900b, 398; Reichardt 1948, 385; Kiil 1956, 157; Clunies Ross 1981, 383). However, this interpretation finds no support in the prose narrative of Skm (SnE 1998, I, 25), which only mentions a járnsía ‘iron spark’, and it is also out of keeping with the metaphors in the previous stanzas.
kennings
- nestum meina — the provisions of harm [PIECE OF IRON]
grammar
case: dat.
number: pl.