Þul Sverða 1III/4 — Dragvandill ‘Dragvandill’
Ek mun segja sverða heiti:
hjǫrr ok Hrotti, hǫguðr, Dragvandill,
gróa, Gramr, gellir, gjallr ok neðanskarðr,
sigðr ok Snyrtir, sómi, skjómi.
Ek mun segja heiti sverða: hjǫrr ok Hrotti, hǫguðr, Dragvandill, gróa, Gramr, gellir, gjallr ok neðanskarðr, sigðr ok Snyrtir, sómi, skjómi.
I shall say the names of swords: sword and Hrotti, useful one, Dragvandill, growing one, Gramr, yeller, clamouring one and end-notched one, sickle and Snyrtir, honour, glimmer.
notes
[4] Dragvandill: Perhaps lit. ‘draw-wand’. This is the name of a sword originally belonging to the legendary king of the Saami, Gusi(r), and later owned by a succession of saga-heroes including Ketill hœngr, Skallagrímr and Egill (FSN II, 122 etc.; Eg chs 61, 64-5, ÍF 2, 195, 204, 209-10). The word is used in poetry only as a proper name and never as a common noun. All mss give the form Dragvandill here, while other prose and poetic sources have either ‑vandill or ‑vendill (cf. Egill Lv 35/2V (Eg 64), Keth Lv 20/1VIII (Ket 36)). According to Falk (1914b, 63), vendill is a sword-heiti. The variant ‑vandill in Dragvandill may be derived from vǫndr m. ‘wand’ (cf. vǫndull m. ‘wisp’); hence the name would mean ‘a sword which is so long that it is dragged’ (see Falk 1914b, 49), or, perhaps more likely, a sword that is drawn from its scabbard (cf. draga sverð ‘draw a sword’, Heggstad et al. 2008: 1. draga). Falk (1914b, 63) derives ‑vandill/-vendill from an ethnic name (cf. Vandill, Vendill in Jutland and Wendala in Saxo 2005, II, 681). Vandill is also the name of a sea-king and a giant (see Note to Þul Sækonunga 5/2 and Þul Jǫtna II 1/6).