GunnLeif Merl I 95VIII/6 — kjal ‘keel’
Viti bragnar þat, þeirs bók lesa,
hvé at spjǫllum sé spámanns farit,
ok kynni þat kjaldýrs viðum,
hverr fyrða sé framsýnna hôttr
môl at rekja, þaus menn vitut.
Bragnar, þeirs lesa bók, viti þat, hvé sé farit at spjǫllum spámanns, ok kynni þat viðum kjaldýrs, hverr hôttr framsýnna fyrða sé at rekja môl, þaus menn vitut.
May men, who read the book, know that, how the prophet’s sayings have been rendered, and teach that to trees of the keel-beast [SHIP > SEAFARERS], what the style of prophetic persons is in narrating matters that men do not know.
readings
[6] kjal‑: kal Hb
notes
[6] kjaldýrs ‘of the keel-beast [SHIP]’: Obscure but probably a kenning for ‘ship’. The determinant kal- is difficult to explain as it stands. A first element kal- in compounds occurs in kalreip ‘rope on a ship that prevents the sail from flapping’, but is unlikely to be relevant, since it depends on the (Modern Icelandic) idiom segl kelur ‘the sail loses the wind’, lit. ‘the sail cools’ (LP: kalreip), thus a ‘rope [to prevent] “cooling”’. Instead ms. kal- appears to represent a miswriting for (or conceivably a reduced form of) kjal-, combinative form of kjǫlr ‘keel’. Thus ‘of the keel-beast [SHIP]’. The late kenning meiðar kjaldúks ‘trees of the keel-cloth’ (EGils Guðkv 20/3-4IV) may represent an imitation of Gunnlaugr.
kennings
- kjaldýrs, — the keel-beast, [SHIP]
- viðum kjaldýrs, — to trees {of the keel-beast, [SEAFARERS]