Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 50

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GRIPLA
Both manuscripts read váskapaðr here, a word not found elsewhere in Old
Icelandic. It is variously translated ‘wretchedly formed, created, destined, for
woe, for disaster’. The context, however, does not call for such a generalized
insult to the giant.1 2 If, instead of vá- (‘woe’, ‘disaster’) we read vás- (’harsh
weather’ ‘exposure to violent wind, rain and snow’), we have a word —
vásskapaðr — that relates directly to Hymir’s late arrival home and to his
frozen beard. Hymir is vásskapaðr (1) ‘created for harsh weather’, designed by
his gigantic physique and will-power — harðráðr Hymir — to defy icy and
tempestuous conditions3, and (2) ‘created out o/harsh weather’, just as his
ancestor, the first giant, Ymir, — was created out of the venom-cold spume —
the eitrdropar — of the snow-storm waves — Elivágar — in the primordial
ocean, as is said in Váfþrúðnismál (31). All giants are hrímþursar in origin
(SnE 12/21-22), and the grandfather of Vetr — ‘Winter’ itself — was Vásaðr,
‘Foul Weather’; and all of that family were cruel and coldhearted — grimmir
ok svalbrjóstaðir (SnE 27/8) — much akin to the giants. Hymir’s home is
oriented to the place of his origins — fyr austan Elivága (5/1-2): the poet
knows the old traditions.
2. Hymiskviða 25/1
From the giant Hymir’s boat, Þórr strikes the World Serpent with his hammer
and thunders are heard, at his hammer-blow —
Heingálkn hlumðo, [MSS. Hrein] Hone-wreckers rumbled,
en hplkn þuto. and stony wastes howled.
Fór in foma The ancient earth
1 Epithets applied to Hymir in the poem are remarkably specifíc: hundvíss, móðugr, harðráðr,
forn, liárr, ballr (sycophantic use by Þórr), óteitr, þrágirni vanr, kostmóðr. There is no moral
generalisation directed against him (if we discount the rudeness of the kenning, áttrunnrapa,
‘shrub of the ape family’, 21/3).
2 Vásskapaðr is also a hapax legomenon; I suggest, a deliberate creation of the poet’s.
3 So, Hallfreðr Óttarsson, disguised as a decrepit old man, declares himself hrumr afvási ok nú
mest afkulðum, er ek hefi rekizt úti á skógum í allan vetr, ‘weak from harsh weather and
now mainly from the cold, since I have been wandering out in the open in the forests the
whole v/inler’(Flateyjarbók I 330, IF VIII 164). According to Snorri’s story (SnE 61), Hymir
scoms Þórr’s offer to accompany him on his fishing expedition, because he is small and
callow (Þórr is disguised as a sveinn), and ‘will feel cold, if I sit as long and as far out as I
usually do’. Hymir himself is designed for this.