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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ESk Øxfl 1III/4 — látra ‘with lairs’

Þars Mardallar milli
(meginhurðar) liggr skurða
(Gauts berum galla þrútinn)
grátr (dalreyðar látra).

Þars grátr Mardallar liggr milli skurða; berum galla meginhurðar Gauts, þrútinn látra dalreyðar.

Where the tears of Mardǫll <= Freyja> [GOLD] lie between the grooves; we [I] carry the destroyer of Gautr’s <= Óðinn’s> mighty door [SHIELD > AXE/SWORD], swollen with lairs of the valley-char [SNAKE > GOLD].

notes

[4] látra dalreyðar ‘with lairs of the valley-char [SNAKE > GOLD]’: Lit. ‘of lairs of the valley-char’. This phrase qualifies þrútinn ‘swollen’ (see SnE 1998, II, 342: látr and NS §§104, 137). Usually one would expect the qualifier to be in the dat. rather than in the gen. (see Fritzner: þrútinn). Reyðr is a fish, the Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), but the word can also mean ‘whale’ (any whale of the species Balaenoptera). See Notes to Steinn Óldr 11/7II, Sturl Hrafn 7/8II, Þul Fiska 2/2 and Þul Hvala 1/5.

kennings

grammar

case: gen.
number: pl.

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