ǪrvOdd Lv 13VIII (Ǫrv 46)/10 — skauð ‘cunt’
Sigurðr, vartu eigi, er á Selund feldak
bræðr bölharða Brand ok Agnar,
Ásmund, Ingjald, Álfr var inn fimti.
En þú heima látt í höll konungs,
skrökmálasamr, skauð hernumin.
Sigurðr, vartu eigi, er feldak á Selund bölharða bræðr Brand ok Agnar, Ásmund, Ingjald, Álfr var inn fimti. En þú, skrökmálasamr, látt heima í höll konungs, hernumin skauð.
Sigurðr, you were not [there] when on Sjælland I felled the harm-hard brothers Brandr and Agnarr, Ásmundr, Ingjaldr; Álfr was the fifth. But you, babbler of lies, lay at home in the king’s hall, you forcibly taken cunt.
readings
[10] skauð: ‘skud’ 344a
notes
[10] hernumin skauð ‘you forcibly taken cunt’: A very strong insult. Skauð is often translated ‘wretch, coward, good-for-nothing’ (cf. Skj B’s translation and LP: skauð), and undoubtedly the general implication of the term is that a man referred to in such language is unmanly. However, skauð, a f. noun, has the specific sense of the internal female genitalia (cf. OE sceað, ModEngl. sheath, Lat. vagina) and Fritzner: skauð 1 gives citations of the term’s pejorative use when applied to a man. In combination with the adjectival p. p. hernumin ‘captured, taken by force’ there is no doubt of the pejorative implication of skauð, as the verb hernema is frequently used of women captured in raids or fighting and forced to become men’s concubines; see Fritzner: hernema 2 and the use of the same p. p. in Ǫrv 50/7.