Ólhelg Lv 2I/4 — ǫlnis ‘mackerel’
Bǫls, þats lind í landi
landrifs fyr ver handan
golli merkð við galla
grjótǫlnis skal fǫlna.
Þann myndak við vilja
valklifs, meðan lifðak,
— alin erumk bjǫrk at bǫlvi
bands — algrœnan standa.
Bǫls, þats lind landrifs, merkð golli, skal fǫlna í landi fyr handan ver við galla grjótǫlnis. Myndak vilja þann við valklifs standa algrœnan, meðan lifðak; bjǫrk bands erumk alin at bǫlvi.
It is a misery that the linden-tree of the land-rib [STONE (steinn ‘jewel’) > WOMAN = Steinvǫr], distinguished with gold, must grow pale in a land across the sea with the affliction of the stone-mackerel [SNAKE > WINTER]. I would wish that tree of the falcon-cliff [ARM > WOMAN] to stand fully green as long as I lived; the birch of the headband [WOMAN] is born to bring me misery.
readings
[4] ‑ǫlnis: ‘olna’ Bb
notes
[3-4] við galla grjótǫlnis ‘with the affliction of the stone-mackerel [SNAKE > WINTER]’: (a) This interpretation follows Kock (NN §595) in taking galli as a common noun. Kennings representing winter as the harm or misery of snakes are common, and Meissner 109 cites two (though not this) with galli as their base-word; its sense in these kennings is ‘affliction, harm’ rather than the more usual ‘fault, flaw’. (b) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B treated galla as a reference to the woman’s husband and arranged the words of ll. 1-4 as follows: Bǫl’s þats grjótǫlnis landrifs lind … skal fǫlna … við Galla ‘It is a misfortune that the woman … must grow pale … with Galli’. He took grjótǫlnir ‘stone-mackerel’ to denote ‘snake’, the landrif ‘land-rib [STONE]’ of the snake as ‘gold’, and the lind ‘lime-tree’ of gold as ‘woman’ (LP: grjótǫlnir). However, as seen in the Note to ll. 1-2, the woman-kenning lind landrifs is already complete, and although numerous kennings represent gold as the resting-place of serpents or dragons, base-words meaning ‘stone, rock’ are all but unparalleled (cf. Meissner 237-9). (c) Finally, it is possible that galli is a pun: part of the kenning assumed under (a), but also alluding to a man named Galli (cf. NN §2773A).
kennings
- grjótǫlnis. — of the stone-mackerel. [SNAKE]
- galla grjótǫlnis. — the affliction of the stone-mackerel. [WINTER]
grammar
case: gen.