Þul Tungls 1III/4 — mulinn ‘crescent’
Þul Tungls 1IIIAlskír, geisli ok eyglóa,
máni, Miðgarðr, mulinn, tungl ok glámr,
skýðir, œki, skarmr, ártali,
ný, skjalgr, lúna, nið, fengari.
Alskír, geisli ok eyglóa, máni, Miðgarðr, mulinn, tungl ok glámr, skýðir, œki, skarmr, ártali, ný, skjalgr, lúna, nið, fengari.
All-bright one, beam and ever-glow, moon, Miðgarðr, crescent, moon and twilight, hastener, moving one, one dragging forward, year-counter, waxing moon, squinter, lúna, waning moon, fengari.
readings
[4] mulinn: mulin B
notes
[4] mulinn (m.) ‘crescent’: The quality and quantity of the root vowel are uncertain (for details, see ÍO: múlinn, mýlinn). Alv 14/1-2 (NK 126) has the variant mylinn: Máni heitir með mǫnnom, | enn mylinn með goðom ‘It is called máni among men but mylinn among the gods’. Güntert (1921, 143) explains mýlinn as ‘fiery’ (cf. Lat. mulleus ‘red, crimson’), but cf. mylir a tvngli ‘covers the moon’ (AÍ II, 90; otherwise the weak verb mýla is attested in the sense ‘muzzle’). According to Alexander Jóhannesson (1927, 47), the correct form of the word is mulinn (from muli, moli ‘small particle’). If so, the heiti probably denotes the moon on the wane (AEW: múlinn, mýlinn; LP: mulinn glossed as aftagende ‘waning’; SnE 1998, II, 358: ‘horned’). Other than in the present þula and in Alv 14/2, the word occurs once in C14th skaldic poetry (Árni Gd 63/3IV). In Skm (SnE 1998, I, 85), possibly due to confusion of the two lists of heiti, mylin (f.; cf. the variants ‘mysen’ R(37r), C(6r), ‘mylen’ Tˣ(38v), ‘mylin’ A(14v)) is found among the names for ‘sun’, while mulinn (m.) is given as a term for ‘moon’ (cf. the variants there: ‘mvlenn’ R(37r), ‘mulenn’ Tˣ(38v), ‘mvlinn mylinn’ U(36v), ‘mvsinn’ C(6r), but ‘mylinn’ in A(14v)).