Þul Women 2III/6 — sværu ‘with the mother-in-law’
Blíð es mær við móður;
mála drekkr á ekkju;
kvíðir kerling eiðu;
kveðr dóttir vel beðju.
Opt finnr ambátt hǫptu;
æ ’r frilla grǫm sværu;
kiljar kván ok elja;
kann nipt við snør skipta.
Mær es blíð við móður; mála drekkr á ekkju; kerling kvíðir eiðu; dóttir kveðr vel beðju. Ambátt finnr opt hǫptu; frilla [e]r æ grǫm sværu; kván ok elja kiljar; nipt kann skipta við snør.
The maiden is friendly towards her mother; a confidante drinks to a widow; an old woman worries about her mother; the daughter welcomes her bedfellow. The handmaid often visits the bondwoman; a mistress is forever angry with the mother-in-law; the wife and the concubine quarrel; the sister can deal with the daughter-in-law.
readings
notes
[6] frilla [e]r æ grǫm sværu ‘a mistress is forever angry with the mother-in-law’: The reading æ ’r (æ er in the mss) was suggested by Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-89, II, 900) and accepted in Skj B. The rhyme (æ ’r : ‑ær) shows that the [s] (in the earlier es ‘is’) has been rhotacised here and that we are dealing with a contracted form. For C13th unstable forms of such words (e.g. es and er), see Notes to SnSt Ht 58/1 and 82/5, 6. The word frilla f. (= friðla) ‘mistress’ occurs in prose also in the sense ‘harlot’ (see CVC: friðla) and in Old Norse poetry it otherwise appears only once (Hym 30/2), but it is found in the later rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: frilla). This is presumably one of those terms for ‘woman’ used for slander (til lastmælis) which the author of SnE, as he declares, preferred ‘not to copy down’ while composing the chapter Kvinna heiti ókend of Skm despite the fact that such words could be found in poetry (see SnE 1998, I, 108). The term sværa f. ‘mother-in-law’ (cf. Goth. swaihro ‘mother-in-law’) was not commonly used in Old Norse (see Fritzner: sværa), but it is mentioned in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108): Sværa heitir vers móðir ‘A husband’s mother is called sværa’. It is not otherwise used in poetry.