At 5:16:46 AM on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, llama_nom
wrote:
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:
>> The first problem is the preposition <fyrir>. After much
>> thought I decided to take it as 'because of' in a causal
>> sense: it's the fall of the slain that has set up the loom.
> I wonder if it could be Zoega's 9th sense for <fyrir> +
> dat., "(9) denoting disadvantige, harm, suffering; þú lætr
> Egil vefja öll mál f. þér, thou lettest E. thwart all thy
> affairs; tók at eyðast f. herm lausa-fé, her money began
> to fail;" In which case, perhaps it could be translated
> simply 'for'. Since the valkyries actions take place on
> Good Friday morning, and since they traditionally choose
> the slain, I was thinking of the causality the other way
> around: the loom determining the battle.
I was influenced quite a bit by some of the discussion in
Russell Gilbert Poole, Viking poems on war and peace: a
study in skaldic narrative, of which a preview is available
at Google Books. (And I just noticed that there's a really
good diagram on p. 133.) For the identification of <yllir>
as shed rod he cites Anne Holtsmark, 'Vefr Darraðar', Maal
og Minne, 74-96, the relevant material being on pp. 82-3;
unfortunately, I don't have ready access to this.
>> The <rifr> 'warp-beam' is the beam from which the warp
>> threads hang, and its <reiðiský> 'rigging-cloud' is
>> presumably either what hangs from it or by metonymy the loom
>> as a whole. (I take the first half of the compound to be
>> <reiði> 'tackle, rigging'.) <Rigna> 'to rain' takes the
>> substance rained in the dative, so <rignir blóði> is simply
>> '(it) rains blood'. <Vítt> is either an adverb or an
>> adjective modifying <reiðiský>, but the sense is about the
>> same either way.
> For <reiðiský>, Lex. poet. 'ophængt sky'. If the first
> element of the compound is derived directly from the verb
> <reiða> 'carry, shake, swing, raise, etc.', maybe 'raised,
> hanging' or 'shaking' cloud? But a rigging metaphor would
> be appropriate to threads.
I didn't think of that possibility; the rigging metaphor
jumped out at me. I see that the skaldic database at
<
http://skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au/db.php> makes it 'the
rigged cloud'.
>> <Harðkléaðr> is a variant form of <harðkljáðr>, the past
>> participle of <harðkljá>; Zoëga doesn't have <harðkljá>, but
>> he does have the basic verb, <kljá>. CV has <yllir> as 'the
>> name of a beam in the upright loom', but it seems to me that
>> the beams are already accounted for; the shed rod seems a
>> much better bet, and on digging around on-line I found that
>> this is a fairly widespread interpretation. The diagram at
>> <http://housebarra.com/EP/ep02/20wwl.html> is quite helpful,
>> by the way, and
>> <http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/image/mywwloom.jpg> is a
>> picture of a modern reproduction based on extant medieval
>> loom parts from Greenland and Iceland; it's set up for
>> four-shed twill, according to its owner. (I know her
>> slightly; she's a serious re-enactor whose scholarship I
>> trust wholeheartedly.) I think that Grace's photos make a
>> good case that the battle's swords are being identified with
>> the weavers' shuttles.
> There are some notes on the loom terminology in this poem
> here:
> http://www.archive.org/details/anglosaxonnorsep00chadrich
> Anglo-Saxon and Norse poems (1922), 191-195.
> On <yllir>, Lex. poet. just says 'a tool pertaining to
> the loom' (also a type of tree). In particular, not that
> Kershaw offers a different interpretation of <hrælaðr> to
> CV (p. 193). She explains <hræll> as a "pointed instrument
> of bone or hard wood used to carry the weft into its
> proper place", rather than the sley. Another definition I
> found online: "teinn (rúmlega 20 cm langur) úr hvalbeini
> (eða tré), oftast oddmyndaður til beggja enda, notaður til
> að til að færa ívafið og jafna" (a stick, 20 cm or longer,
> made of whalebone or wood, often pointed at both ends,
> used to move the weft and make [it] even)." According to
> Kershaw, 'reed' is "nearer the mark" (than sley) but
> "involves a chronological difficulty".
> Could <hræll> be translated 'shuttle'?
Perhaps. Ritmálssafn Orðabókar Háskólans has a 17th century
gloss of <hræll> as 'radius textoris', which is a gloss
given for <A Weaver's shuttle> in The Law-French Dictionary
Alphabetically Digested, 2nd edn., 1718, available at
<
http://books.google.com/books?id=5I8NAAAAQAAJ>. In
Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum, A Dictionary of the Gaelic
Language, vol. 2, 1828, <spal> (now written <spàl>) is
glossed 'a weaver's shuttle' and 'radius textoris'.
<
http://www.archive.org/stream/dictionariumscot03edin#page/136/mode/2up/search/radius+textoris>
Glossarium - Sveo-Gothicum, Haquin Spegel, 1712, has for
<Wäf-spole> Latin panus, radius textoris, Belgian <een
schiet-sple>, and English <a weavers shittle>.
<
http://books.google.com/books?id=u48NAAAAQAAJ>
I'd have expected a <väv-spole> to be a weaving spool or
bobbin, but in Axel Koch, 'Behandlingen av fornsvenskt kort
y-ljud och supradentalers invärkan på vokalisationen', Arkiv
för nordisk filologi, Ny följd, Femte bandet, 1893, on p. 74
I find:
I nysv. användes utom <skyttel> "väv-spole", hvilket väl
är den mast använda formen, även <sköttel> samt, enligt
Dalins ordbok, också <skötel>. Ordet, som är besläktat med
<skjuta> (jmf. eng. <shuttle> "vävspole"), finnes i denna
betydelse icke i isl. och har icke uppvisats från fsv.
(isl. har emellertid <skutill> "skjutvapen, flyttbart
bord" etc.), och det torde i helt sen tid hava införts i
riksspråket.
<
http://runeberg.org/anf/1893/0078.html>
Brian