Þjóð Yt 3I/7 — Grímhildr ‘Grímhildr’
Enn á vit
Vilja bróður
vitta véttr
Vanlanda kom,
þás trollkund
of troða skyldi
líðs Grímhildr
ljóna bága.
Ok sá brann
á beði Skútu
menglǫtuðr,
es mara kvalði.
Enn véttr vitta kom Vanlanda á vit bróður Vilja, þás trollkund Grímhildr líðs skyldi of troða bága ljóna. Ok sá menglǫtuðr, es mara kvalði, brann á beði Skútu.
And the creature of charms [SORCERESS] got Vanlandi to visit the brother of Vili <god> [= Óðinn] when the troll-descended Grímhildr of strong drink [WOMAN] had to trample the fighter of men [KING]. And that ring-destroyer [GENEROUS MAN] whom the mara tormented burned on the bank of the Skúta.
readings
[7] Grímhildr: ‘grimilldr’ F
notes
[5, 7] trollkund Grímhildr líðs ‘the troll-descended Grímhildr of strong drink [WOMAN]’: Grímhildr can be interpreted (a) as an appellative or (b) as a proper name, either of a legendary heroine or of a sorceress. (a) Because Grímhildr is written with lower case <g> in Kˣ and Fˣ but only in J2ˣ with a capital letter, it has been explained by some scholars as a cpd of two nouns: grím- translated as ‘night’ (cf. LP: gríma 4) and ‑hildr as ‘valkyrie’ (cf. LP: hildr 2). Within this general approach there have been various specific theories. (i) In light of the prose context of Hkr, which links Vanlandi’s death to a mara (a mythical being, cf. Note to l. 12), several sources (Falk 1889c, 264; Hkr 1893-1901, IV; Yng 1912; LP: grím-Hildr; Hkr 1991) assume the cpd to be a kenning ‘hostile creature of the night [NIGHTMARE]’. However, the cpd is not plausible as a kenning since it appears to be a unique coinage, rather than conforming to known semantic-structural patterns. Further, kennings with a base-word meaning ‘hostile creature’ always denote something hostile to the accompanying gen., e.g. a ‘dog (or wolf) of the trees [FIRE]’ damages the trees and a ‘house-enemy [FIRE]’ damages the house. (ii) The primary meaning of gríma, a kind of cowl, helmet or head-covering, inspired a further interpretation of grímhildr as a woman-kenning ‘Hildr of the hood’ (Yt 1925). However, the expected compounding form would be not grím- but grímu-, as in grímumaðr ‘a hooded man’ or grímueiðr ‘an oath against a grímumaðr’ (Fritzner: grímueiðr, grímumaðr). (b) Grímhildr is therefore interpreted in this edn as a proper name linked to the word líðs, with a long vowel, which is n. gen. sg. ‘of strong drink’. The result is a normal woman-kenning of the type ‘heroine/troll-woman of strong drink’. The name Grímhildr could refer to a figure from the Nibelung legend (Marold 1983, 116-17).
kennings
- trollkund Grímhildr líðs — the troll-descended Grímhildr of strong drink [WOMAN]
grammar
case: nom.