Gestumbl Heiðr 35VIII (Heiðr 82)/3 — blóðshol* ‘a blood vessel’
Gestumbl Heiðr 35VIII (Heiðr 82)Sat ek á segli, sá ek dauða menn
blóðshol* bera í börk viðar.
Heiðrekr konungr, hyggðu at gátu.
Ek sat á segli, ek sá dauða menn bera blóðshol* í börk viðar. Heiðrekr konungr, hyggðu at gátu.
I sat on a sail, I saw dead men carry a blood vessel into the bark of a tree. King Heiðrekr, think about the riddle.
readings
[3] blóðshol*: ‘blo þ̄ holld’ 2845, ‘blodzholld’ 281ˣ, ‘blőds holld’ 597bˣ
notes
[3] blóðshol* ‘a blood vessel’: Lit. ‘blood’s hole’. The homonym æðr, given in the solution, means both ‘eider duck’ and ‘blood vessel’, but the scribes do not seem to have understood this pun. The main ms. reads ‘bloþ̄ holld’, which Skj and, following Finnur Jónsson, FSGJ, expand to blóðugt ‘bloody’ (as did Petersen and Thorarensen in 1847) giving ‘bloody flesh’, only loosely synonymous with ‘vein’. The H redaction has blóðs hold ‘flesh of blood(?)’. The emendation to blóðshol, which is tentatively adopted here, was first suggested in Rafn et al. 1850-2, I, 189 n. 7. It is accepted in Heiðr 1873, 261, Edd. Min., Skald and Heiðr 1960 among others, although the word is not otherwise attested in Old Norse. The interpretation of Anon Gát 1/5III relies on the same pun on æðr; a similar play on words occurs in Anon (FoGT) 20/5-6III.