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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Gát 2III/5 — járn ‘iron’

Enn sá ek fljúga         öðru sinni:
skorinn línskauta         ok skip Þráins,
járn ór afli,         útleidda sál,
konu kjötnefnda         fyr kvið neðan.

Enn sá ek fljúga öðru sinni: skorinn línskauta ok skip Þráins, járn ór afli, útleidda sál, kjötnefnda konu fyr neðan kvið.

Again I saw fly a second time: cut linen-square and Þráinn’s ship, iron from the forge, transcended soul, named flesh of a woman below the belly.

notes

[5] járn ór afli ‘iron from the forge’: Perhaps helsingr ‘barnacle goose’ (Þul Fugla 1/4). ‘Iron from the forge’ is a sword (see LP: járn), and helsingr is listed among the sword-heiti in Þul Sverða 8/7 (see Note there), although is not found as a term for ‘sword’ elsewhere in the corpus. The word possibly derives from háls ‘neck’ (AEW: helsingr), and in her edn of the þulur in this volume Gurevich translates the sword-heiti ‘long-neck’, a fitting description for both a sword and a goose. Helsingr seems also to be the solution to Gát 3/4, although via a different play on words. Trani ‘crane’ and ǫrn ‘eagle’ also appear among the sword-heiti, Þul Sverða 6/4 and 8/3 respectively, without other attested usages as sword-terms in poetry. See also Notes to Þul Orma 2/4 and Þul Sverða 7/8. In 743ˣ Árni Magnússon has added ‘teistikofa’ above the line; this (spelled ‘þeistekofa’) is also added as a gloss above the line in 1562ˣ. This solution is printed in SnE 1848 without comment. ON þeisti (ModIcel. teista) is the guillemot (Cepphus grylle); cf. Þul Fugla 4/4 and Note. ON kofa is a young puffin. It is unclear, however, how this solution is reached from the clue. In Skj B Finnur Jónsson does not propose a solution, stating merely usikkert ‘uncertain’; in LP: afl he suggests hávella ‘long-tailed duck’ (Clangula hiemalis), arriving there via vella ‘to boil, bubble’ (cf. Note to Gát 3/9). The LaufE mss ÍBR 35 4°ˣ and Lbs 1116 4°ˣ suggest geirfugl ‘great auk’, literally ‘spear-bird’, so named for the shape of its beak. This seems to be closer to what is required, but the mss date from the first half of the C19th, making it difficult to claim that it was the original solution; however the word geirfugl and the variant geirfalki are both attested from the C14th.

grammar

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