Eyv Hál 1I/6 — hver ‘the cauldron’
Viljak hljóð
at Hôars líði,
meðan Gillings
gjǫldum yppik,
meðan hans ætt
í hverlegi
galga farms
til goða teljum,
hinn es Surts
ór søkkdǫlum
farmǫgnuðr
fljúgandi bar.
Viljak hljóð at líði Hôars, meðan yppik gjǫldum Gillings, meðan teljum ætt hans til goða í hverlegi farms galga, hinn es farmǫgnuðr bar fljúgandi ór søkkdǫlum Surts.
I would wish for a hearing for the drink of Hôarr <= Óðinn> [POETRY], while I lift up the payment for Gillingr <giant> [POETRY], while we [I] reckon his lineage back to the gods in the cauldron-liquid [DRINK] of the burden of the gallows [= Óðinn > POETRY], that which the travel-furtherer [= Óðinn] carried flying from the treasure-valleys of Surtr [giant].
notes
[All]: The poetry-kennings in the stanza allude programmatically to different phases in the story of Óðinn’s appropriation of the poetic mead (see Skm, SnE 1998, I, 3-5). — [6] hverlegi ‘the cauldron-liquid [DRINK]’: The kenning, unusually, functions as the base-word of a further kenning, for ‘poetry’. The reference to a cauldron is particularly apt since according to Skm (SnE 1998, I, 4-5) Óðinn steals the mead of poetry from Suttungr by drinking it from three great vats. He then escapes by flying off in the shape of an eagle, spitting out the mead on arrival in Ásgarðr, the home of the gods; ll. 9-12 allude to this.
kennings
- hverlegi — the cauldron-liquid [DRINK]
- hverlegi farms galga, — the cauldron-liquid of the burden of the gallows, [POETRY]