Þhorn Harkv 23I/8 — logǫndum ‘blazing’
‘At hundi elskar Andaðr ok heimsku drýgir
eyrnalausum ok jǫfur hlœgir.
Hinir eru ok aðrir, es of eld skulu
brennanda spôn bera;
logǫndum húfum hafa sér und linda drepit
hældræpir halir.’
‘Andaðr elskar at eyrnalausum hundi ok drýgir heimsku ok hlœgir jǫfur. Hinir eru ok aðrir, es skulu bera brennanda spôn of eld; hældræpir halir hafa drepit logǫndum húfum und linda sér.’
‘Andaðr fondles an earless dog, and he plays the fool and makes the king laugh. There are also others whose practice is to pass a burning wood-chip across a fire; those men who deserve kicking have tucked blazing caps under their belts.’
readings
[8] logǫndum: ‘loghandum’ 301ˣ
notes
[7] spôn ‘wood-chip’: The exact nature of the entertainment is disputed. Kock (NN §1506) sees here an allusion to antics of the sort that he himself apparently had seen fire-eaters engage in: they would pass wood-shavings through (of) flames without setting them on fire (and see following Note). Accordingly, he rejects the collocation brennanda spôn ‘burning wood-shaving’ of Skj B (and here) and instead construes brennanda with eld ‘fire’. But the resulting syntax is uncharacteristic of the poem (Jón Helgason 1946, 141). Sigfús Blöndal (1927-8) would emend to brennandi spǫnn ‘burning pails’, in reference to bowls of scalding hot wine carried round the fire or (less convincingly in the Viking Age) to liquor flambé . — [8] logǫndum húfum ‘blazing caps’: As with the wood-chip in l. 7 (see Note), there have been several attempts to imagine the nature of the entertainment, often involving emendation of the text. Larsen (1943-6, II, 248) understands the performers to be placing blazing caps on their bare stomachs. CPB I, 258 would read logǫndum lúfum ‘flaming shock-locks’. Olsen (1915) suggests logǫndum stúfum ‘burning stumps’ (in reference to phallic exhibitionism, the ‘burning’ being metaphorical); and Holtsmark (1950, 247) recommends the same emendation, arguing that the ‘stumps’ are blazing torches that the entertainers wield ‘under the belt’ in a phallic dance. Sigfús Blöndal (1927-8) proposes lafandum húfum ‘dangling caps’, in reference to fools’ caps with very long peaks or tassels. Lindquist (1929, 8-9) emends to lotrǫndum, which he takes to mean ‘dangling’. Kock (NN §2410) argues that WGmc *log- ‘dangle’ was borrowed and misconstrued.