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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (SnE) 1III/1 — brúðar ‘of the wife’

Bæði ák til brúðar
bergjarls ok skip dverga
sollinn vind at senda
seinfyrnð gǫtu eina.

Ák bæði til, sollinn vind brúðar bergjarls ok seinfyrnð skip dverga, at senda eina gǫtu.

I have both, my swollen wind of the wife of the mountain-jarl [GIANT > GIANTESS > THOUGHT] and the never-forgotten ships of dwarfs [POEMS], to send in the same direction.

readings

[1] brúðar: ‘broþr’ U

notes

[1-2, 3] sollinn vind brúðar bergjarls ‘my swollen wind of the wife of the mountain-jarl [GIANT > GIANTESS > THOUGHT]’: According to Skm (SnE 1998, I, 108), ‘thought, mind’ ought to be circumscribed as ‘wind of the giantess’: Huginn skal svá kenna at kalla vind trǫllkvinna ok rétt at nefna til hverja er vill ok svá at nefna jǫtnana eða kenna þá til konu eða móður eða dóttur þess ‘Thought shall be paraphrased in such a manner as to call it wind of troll-women, and it is correct to name whichever [troll-woman] one wants and also to name giants and qualify her [the troll-woman] as the wife or mother or daughter of that one’. The origin of this type of kenning is obscure. Kock (NN §1098; Skald) argues that, rather than til lit. ‘to’ (l. 1) being an adv., it is more natural to take it as a prep. with the object brúðar ‘wife, woman’ (at senda til brúðar ‘to send to the woman’). While that is certainly correct (we would not expect the adv. til in an unstressed position and a syntactic break before position 5), it forces Kock to construe the kenning as sollinn vind bergjarls ‘swollen wind of the mountain-jarl [GIANT > THOUGHT]’, in which the determinant is ‘giant’ rather than ‘giantess’. There is very little evidence, if any, for such a kenning (see Meissner 138-9), and the present edn therefore follows SnE 1848-87, Skj B and SnE 1998, II, 243, 263.

kennings

grammar

case: gen.

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