Anon (SnE) 9III/2 — sjǫt ‘of dwelling’
Troll kalla mik,
tungl sjǫt-Rungnis,
auðsúg jǫtuns,
élsólar bǫl,
vilsinn vǫlu,
vǫrð náfjarðar,
hvélsvelg himins.
Hvats troll nema þat?
Kalla mik troll, tungl sjǫt-Rungnis, auðsúg jǫtuns, bǫl élsólar, vilsinn vǫlu, vǫrð náfjarðar, hvélsvelg himins. Hvats troll nema þat?
They call me troll, moon of dwelling-Rungnir [TROLL], wealth-sucker of a giant [TROLL-WOMAN], trouble of the storm-sun [TROLL], delightful company of a prophetess [TROLL-WOMAN], guardian of the corpse-fjord [GRAVE > TROLL], swallower of the wheel of the sky [(lit. ‘wheel-swallower of the sky’) SUN > TROLL]. What’s a troll if not that?
readings
[2] sjǫt‑Rungnis: ‘siotrvgnnis’ R
notes
[2] tungl sjǫt-Rungnis ‘moon of dwelling-Rungnir [TROLL]’: This is the most obscure of the kennings in the stanza. Rungnir may be a giant name, possibly a variant of the better-attested Hrungnir, the name of a giant with whom Þórr fought a duel (SnE 1998, I, 20-2). Sigrdr 15/5-6 (NK 193) names one of the places where runes are carved as á því hvéli, er snýz | undir reið Rungnis ‘on that wheel, which turns beneath the chariot of Rungnir’. Kock (NN §1095B and Skald) emends to tungls sjǫthrungni ‘moon’s dwelling-Hrungnir’ ‘Hrungnir [i.e. destroyer] of the moon’s dwelling’ (by inversion), an allusion to the same myth as the kennings in ll. 4 and 7, in which at Ragnarǫk a wolf in the form of a troll will destroy the heavenly bodies (cf. Vsp 40/7-8 (NK 9) tungls tiúgari | í trollz hami ‘destroyer of the sun in the shape of a troll’). Another possibility is that tunglsjǫt ‘moon-dwelling’ could form a cpd, though the kenning still remains obscure.
kennings
- tungl sjǫt-Rungnis, — moon of dwelling-Rungnir, [TROLL]