Refr Ferðv 5III/4 — bjǫrn ‘the bear’
Hrynja fjǫll á fyllar;
framm œsisk nú Glamma
skeið vetrliði skíða;
skaut bjǫrn Gusis nauta.
Fjǫll hrynja á fyllar; nú œsisk vetrliði skíða framm skeið Glamma; bjǫrn nauta Gusis skaut.
Mountains fall into the sea; now the bear of planks [SHIP] rushes forward on the race-course of Glammi <sea-king> [SEA]; the bear of the gifts of Gusir <legendary king> [ARROWS > = Ǫrvar-Oddr] shot.
readings
[4] bjǫrn Gusis nauta: ‘bior[…]’ B, ‘bio᷎rn ..us.. .auta’ 744ˣ
notes
[4] bjǫrn nauta Gusis skaut ‘the bear of the gifts of Gusir <legendary king> [ARROWS > = Ǫrvar-Oddr] shot’: (a) The present interpretation, which follows Marold (2006a), rests on the observation that skaut bjǫrn in l. 4 is written as two separate words in all mss except A. The subject of skaut ‘shot’ can only be bjǫrn ‘bear’, with the added determinant nauta Gusis ‘of the gifts of Gusir’, giving the straightforward clause bjǫrn nauta Gusis skaut ‘the bear of the gifts of Gusir shot’. An explanation for this somewhat cryptic statement is found in the Bjarmaland voyage episode of Ǫrvar-Odds saga (ch. 5, FSN II, 176-82): Oddr and his companions are attacked aboard their ship by giants who hurl rocks at them, creating large waves. Later, Oddr shoots from the inside of a bear decoy he has constructed by draping the skin of a large bear that they have killed over a post, so that it looks as though a bear were standing upright. In the beast’s mouth Oddr kindles a fire and shoots Gusir’s arrows out of it at a giantess who is threatening him and his companions. The difference between the stanza and the episode in Ǫrvar-Odds saga is that in the stanza a bear is shooting, while in the saga the hero stands behind the bear decoy and shoots. It is therefore tempting to assume that the stanza is based on a version of the legend or a related episode in which the hero actually takes on the shape of a bear, which was interpreted later as the use of a decoy. On shape-changing and on the bear-motif in Ǫrvar-Odds saga, see Marold (2006a, 229-33). The two previous interpretations of this line, offered by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Kock (Skald; NN §785), are both unsatisfactory. (b) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; LP: Gusi) construes the whole line as a complicated and over-determined kenning for ‘ship’ (skautbjǫrn nauta Gusis ‘sail-bear of the gifts of Gusir <legendary king>’), his explanation being that one of the Finnish King Gusi’s arrows mentioned in Ketils saga hœngs (Ket ch. 3) is named Flaug and flaug is also a term for the pennant flown by ships (LP: 2. flaug; see also Þul Skipa 6/7). According to Finnur, nauta Gusis ‘of the gifts of Gusir’ is an ofljóst construction for flaug ‘pennant’ that functions as the determinant of skautbjǫrn ‘sail-bear’. Kock (NN §785) rightly labels this interpretation ‘misapplied ingenuity’ (Reichardt 1930, 249 is equally dismissive). (c) Kock (NN §785) splits l. 4 by combining skautbjǫrn with á fyllar (l. 1), and he construes the prepositional phrase á skautbjǫrn fyllar ‘on the sail-bear of the sea [SHIP]’ (on this kenning, see Note to l. 1). He then connects nauta Gusis and vetrliði skíða (l. 3), construing a second ship-kenning, vetrliði skíða nauta Gusis ‘bear of the planks of the gifts of Gusir [ARROWS > SHIELD > SHIP]’. That kenning must also be rejected, because skíð is not attested as a base-word of shield-kennings, and ‘shield’ does not appear in Meissner’s list of ship-kenning determinants (Meissner 214-16).
kennings
- bjǫrn nauta Gusis — the bear of the gifts of Gusir <legendary king> [= Ǫrvar-Oddr]
grammar
case: nom.