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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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GunnLeif Merl I 16VIII/8 — eldi ‘fire’

Gerisk sókn mikil         snáka tveggja;
gapa grimmliga         grundar belti.
Hǫggvask hœknir         hauðrs gyrðingar,
blásask eitri á         ok blôm eldi.

Mikil sókn snáka tveggja gerisk; belti grundar gapa grimmliga. Hœknir gyrðingar hauðrs hǫggvask, blásask eitri ok blôm eldi á.

A great fight commences between the two snakes; the belts of the ground [SNAKES] gape savagely. The vicious girdles of the earth [SNAKES] strike each other, blow venom and blue fire on each other.

notes

[8] blôm eldi ‘blue fire’: The reference is probably to the blue flame emitted on combustion of sulphur. In a fragment of Barth extant in the mid-C13th Norwegian ms. AM 237 b fol (Loth 1969, 233), the phrase blár loge ‘blue flame’ is used to translate Lat. flamma sulphurea ‘sulphurous flame’ (cf. ONP: blár 3; Loth 1969, 221).

grammar

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