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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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EVald Þórr 3III/1 — sýjur ‘rivetted planks’

Svá brá viðr, at sýjur
seiðr renndi fram breiðar
jarðar; út at borði
Ulls mágs hnefar skullu.

Svá brá viðr, at seiðr jarðar renndi fram breiðar sýjur; hnefar mágs Ulls skullu út at borði.

So it came about, that the saithe of the earth [= Miðgarðsormr] made the broad rivetted planks slide forward; the fists of the kinsman of Ullr <god> [= Þórr] banged out on the gunwale.

notes

[1] sýjur ‘the rivetted planks’: Nom. or acc. pl. of sýja ‘rivetting, lit. joining together, sewing’, ship’s planking. Cf. LP: 1. sýja; CVC: sýja ‘the suture of a ship’; Jesch (2001a, 139-40). Used here pars pro toto for a ship. The difference between the two etymologically related words súð and sýja is that ‘súð is the board, sýja the single suture, a súð therefore contains so and so many sýjur’ (CVC: sýja).

grammar

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