Þul Ásynja 5III/4 — telja ‘list’
Nornir heita, þær es nauð skapa;
Nipt ok Dísi nú mun ek telja.
Nornir heita, þær es skapa nauð; nú mun ek telja Nipt ok Dísi.
Those are called norns who create distress; now I shall list Nipt and Dís.
readings
[4] mun ek telja: eru taldar C
notes
[3-4] nú mun ek telja Nipt ok Dísi ‘now I shall list Nipt and Dís’: It is uncertain whether Nipt and Dís in these lines are the personal names of the norns, the goddesses of fate mentioned in ll. 1-2, or common nouns. In the latter case, l. 3 should be translated as ‘sister and lady’ (see SnE 1998, I, 115 and Faulkes 1987, 157). If so, the last two lines of this stanza should be interpreted not as a part of the list of names of various kinds of female deities, but rather as a transitional section between Þul Ásynja and Þul Kvenna I. Dís f. is a term denoting a female guardian spirit (or lesser deity), but in poetic language it is occasionally applied to norns or goddesses of fate as well as to valkyries, who are called dísir Herjans ‘Óðinn’s dísir’. As to nipt f. ‘sister, female relative’, this word is never found as a term for ‘norn’ (but cf. nipt Nera ‘Neri’s sister [NORN]’ in HHund I 4/5 (NK 130) where Neri is the name of a legendary person).