Anon (SnE) 10^III/2 — mála ‘of the speeches’

notes

[1, 2, 3, 4] h*eggi mála Eldis steðja áar ‘to the cherry-tree of the speeches of the Eldir <mythical servant> of the anvil of the river [STONE > GIANT > GOLD > MAN]’: The emendation of the mss’ eldi m. dat. sg. ‘for the fire’ or Eldi m. acc. or dat. sg. of Eldir is in keeping with earlier eds. Mála Eldis steðja áar ‘of the speeches of the Eldir of the anvil of the river’ is clearly a kenning for ‘gold’ (for this myth, see Note to Anon Bjark 5/8). Eldir was one of the servants of the sea-giant Ægir (see Lok 1-5 and prose, NK 96-7). The base-word of this man-kenning is more problematic. All mss have hreggi n. dat. sg. ‘storm’, which is retained by Faulkes (SnE 1998). Hregg ‘storm’ is unprecedented as a base-word in a man-kenning, however, not only because ‘storm of gold’ makes little sense (Faulkes, SnE 1998, II, 317 provides the translation ‘destroyer, enemy of gold’, i.e. ‘generous man’), but also because the noun is n. and not m. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B, followed by Kock in Skald) tentatively emends to hnøggvi (m. dat. sg. of hnøggvir), which Finnur (LP: hnøggvir) translates as som støder, rykker bort, uddeler ‘one who shoves, snatches away, distributes’. Hnøggvir is a hap. leg., however, and also a poor candidate for a base-word in a kenning for ‘generous man’, because other nouns derived from the verb hnøggva ‘shove, push separate sby from sth., stumble’, such as hnøggvi ‘parsimony’ and hnøggvingr ‘one who is parsimonious’, have the opposite meaning to ‘generous’. The present emendation heggi, m. dat. sg. of heggr ‘bird-cherry tree’ (see Þul Viðar 2/1), is less intrusive, and heggr is attested as a base-word in a kenning for ‘warrior’ in Gsind Hákdr 3/2^I.

kennings

• mála Eldis steðja áar. — of the speeches of the Eldir <mythical servant> of the anvil of the river. [GOLD]
• h*eggi mála Eldis steðja áar. — to the cherry-tree of the speeches of the Eldir <mythical servant> of the anvil of the river. [MAN]

grammar

case: gen.
number: pl.