Brúni Lv 1VIII (Ket 1)/1 — Hængr ‘Hœngr (‘Salmon’)’
Heill kom þú, Hængr; hér skaltu þiggja
í allan vetr með oss vera.
Þér mun ek fastna, nema þú fyrir látir,
dóttur mína, áðr dagr komi.
Heill kom þú, Hængr: skaltu þiggja vera hér með oss í allan vetr. Mun ek fastna þér dóttur mína, áðr dagr komi, nema þú látir fyrir.
Welcome, Hœngr (‘Salmon’); you must accept [the invitation] to be here with us for the whole winter. I will engage my daughter to you before day comes, unless you reject [her].
notes
[1] Hængr ‘Hœngr (“Salmon”)’: This cognomen means ‘male salmon’. Ketill acquires it when he kills a dragon by cutting it in two with his axe (Ket ch. 1, FSGJ 2, 153-5). Upon his return home he tells his father Hallbjǫrn that he cannot say where he found schools of fish but that he did hew asunder a male salmon (hœngr, hængr after c. 1250). Hallbjǫrn thinks so little of this report that he gives his son the cognomen hœngr ‘male salmon’. He indicates that Ketill is unable to judge the import of his discovery, since he regards salmon (dragons?) as ‘small fry’ (smáfiskar). Later, while on a fishing expedition with his father, Ketill kills an outlaw named Hœngr who has demanded that Ketill relinquish his large catch of fish to him. When Ketill returns to his father with the catch and relates the incident, Hallbjǫrn says that the name hœngr is well-chosen, since his son is obviously a keen hunter of ‘big fish’ (stórfiskar).