ÞjóðA Frag 3II/4 — ríða ‘ride high’
Ganga él of yngva
Ullar skips með fullu,
þars samnagla siglur
slíðrdúkaðar ríða.
Él skips Ullar ganga of yngva með fullu, þars slíðrdúkaðar siglur samnagla ríða.
The storms of Ullr’s <god’s> ship [SHIELD > BATTLES] come upon the prince at full strength, where sheath-covered masts of the rivet [SWORDS] ride high.
readings
[4] ríða: ‘[...]ða’ U
notes
[3-4] slíðrdúkaðar siglur samnagla ríða ‘sheath-covered masts of the rivet [SWORDS] ride high’: Samnagli only otherwise occurs among sword-heiti in Þul Sverða 12/2III; many of these refer literally to parts of swords, and since samnagli here seems to be a determinant to siglur it probably has the specific sense ‘rivet’, lit. ‘together-nail’ (on a sword), which forms a kenning for ‘sword’ with siglur ‘masts’. The adj. slíðrdúkaðar ‘sheath-covered’, as well as being decorative, further disambiguates the kenning, reinforcing its reference to ‘sword’, though since dúkr refers to cloth, there is also a hint at a sail on a mast, hence slíðrdúkaðar siglur may amount to ‘masts of the rivet [SWORDS], whose sail is a sheath’. The verb ríða ‘ride, swing high’ is appropriate both to the metaphorical masts and sails and to the literal swords; the verb is elsewhere predicated of both swords (as in Rv Lv 17) and banners.