Þjóð Haustl 13III/7 — bifum ‘with moving stories’
Hófu skjótt, en skófu,
skǫpt, ginnregin, brinna
en sunr biðils sviðnar
— sveipr varð í fǫr — Greipar.
Þats of fátt á fjalla
Finns iljabrú minni.
Baugs þák bifum fáða
bifkleif at Þórleifi.
Skǫpt hófu skjótt brinna, en ginnregin skófu, en sunr biðils Greipar sviðnar; sveipr varð í fǫr. Þats of fátt á minni iljabrú Finns fjalla. Þák bifkleif baugs, fáða bifum, at Þórleifi.
Shafts quickly began to burn, which the mighty powers had shaved, and the son of the wooer of Greip <giantess> [GIANT > = Þjazi] is scorched; there was a swerve in his course. That’s depicted on my footsole-bridge of the Finnr <Saami> of the mountains [GIANT = Hrungnir > SHIELD]. I received the quivering cliff of the shield-boss [SHIELD], decorated with moving stories, from Þorleifr.
readings
notes
[7] bifum ‘with moving stories’: This noun has suspended resolution on the fully stressed lift in metrical position 3, which is highly unusual in dróttkvætt and may indicate a very early date of composition. Such suspended resolutions do occur in poetry composed in kviðuháttr metre (also in Þjóð YtI) but not in dróttkvætt. — [7-8] bifkleif baugs, fáða bifum ‘the quivering cliff of the shield-boss [SHIELD], decorated with moving stories’: There is no doubt that bifkleif baugs ‘the quivering cliff of the shield-boss’ is a shield-kenning (cf. the similarly formed base-word raddkleif ‘voice-cliff’ or naddkleif ‘spear-point-cliff’ of st. 1/4), but the connotation of bifkleif is unclear, and it seems that its first element bif- is picked up and varied in the qualifying phrase bifum fáða (l. 7). The base form of a noun bif- is uncertain (cf. LP: bif; AEW: bifa 1), as is its meaning (Marold 1983, 168 provides a useful summary of previous eds’ suggestions). The word combination with fáða ‘decorated, painted’ suggests that bifum is likely to refer to some aspect of the decoration of the shield Þjóðólfr has received from Þorleifr. The verb bifa, always used in m. v. bifask, with the meaning ‘shake, tremble’, provides our best clue to the meaning of bif, both as a simplex and an element in the cpd bifkleif. Bif- seems likely to denote movement, like shaking or quivering; when applied to a shield decorated with images, it may perhaps indicate that they are so vivid that they seem to move or that they are so affecting, because of their mythic narrative power, that they make their audience tremble with awe. ModIcel. bifur (as in hafa illan bifur á e-m ‘distrust sby, spy on sby’) suggests a similar semantic field, as Holtsmark (1949, 40) pointed out. She also noted that the word bifa occurs in a list of alternative names for speech (mál) in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 109) and might therefore mean something like ‘moving, affecting narrative’. If so, Þjóðólfr’s statement that his shield was bifum fáða may be similar to Bragi’s claim in Rdr 7/4 and 12/4 that he received a shield and fjǫl sagna ‘a multitude of stories’ from his patron Ragnarr.