Greetings from Cincinnati,
The 'adornment of ships' probably refers to the fingernails of
the dead being used to build Naglfar, the ship that will sail from Hel piloted
by Loki at the time of Ragnarok.
Elaine Blakely
Heil öll,
I was just
reading the rune poem on "Maðr" this morning, and started
wondering about the exact meaning of "skreytir":
Old
Icelandic:
(Maðr) er manns gaman ok moldar
auki
ok skipa skreytir.
homo.
mildingr.
English Translation (I believe this is Edred
Thorsson's):
(Man) is the joy of man and the increase
of dust
and the adornment of ships.
Human.
Generous one.
Now, "adornment" or decoration seems to go in
Zoega with
skreyta = to ornament, adorn, dress fine, and
skreyting f. =
embellishment
I suppose it means that when men are on the ships, rowing
or standing by their shields on the sides of the ship, they make it beautiful.
I wonder what other words this is related to, and where it comes
from. Sometimes Zoega translates "backwards", that is, he gives
the meaning that makes sense in this context in English, but he is not really
sure what the Old Norse word literally meant. He is not very detailed in
many cases.
With regards,
Birgit
Sumir
hafa kvæði...
...aðrir spakmæli.
-
Keth
Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
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