Eil Þdr 23III/1 — orða ‘of the words’
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].
readings
[1] orða: jarðar U
notes
[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.
kennings
- sáð orða Sónar — the seed of the words of Són <mythical vat> [POETRY]
grammar
case: gen.
number: pl.