I'm puzzling over this description of a wondrous tower in Eireks
saga víðförla:
Sá þeir þá því líkast sem stöpull væri ok hengi í loptinu ok engir
stólpar undir. Þeir nálgast þangat. Þar sá þeir, at hekk á turn í
loptinu á engum stólpum. Sunnan við turninn stóð stigi.
They saw then what looked (for all the world) like a pillar /
steeple / tower. And it seemed to be suspended in the air with
nothing holding it up. They approach it. Then they saw that A
TOWER WAS HANGING (?ON [IT]) in the air with nothing to support it.
A ladder stood propped against the south side of the tower.
stöpull, m. (1) steeple, tower; (2) pillar = stólpi
stólpi, m. post, pillar, column
I'm just trying to visualise this miraculous set-up. I'm assuming
that in this case 'stöpull' isn't synonymous with 'stólpi', since
we're explicitly told that there aren't any of those. But is
the 'stöpull' likely to be the same as the 'turn' (perhaps just less
specific when seen from a distance), in which case can 'hekk á' be
used in an absolute sense, simply "was hanging [up there]"? Or
does 'hekk á' imply that the 'turn' is dangling down from a steeple,
or that it's just hanging suspended in the air perhaps balenced on
top of a pillar that doesn't reach all the way to the ground?
Somehow I don't think archeology can help us here, so it comes down
to the grammar. All suggestions (sketches?!) welcome,