Gripla - 20.12.2015, Blaðsíða 263

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[the 25th riddle is composed with a great deal of ingenuity and solved in a
profoundly logical way, as can be heard, about pigs suckling or drinking.
He says that he ‘has seen on a certain sun-shelter’. that is his term for
farm buildings or the site of a building, given that poetic speech must name
houses in this way, as Suttungur’s house, where Óðinn comes upon the
precious mead, was called Hvítbjörg (read the Edda concerning this). And
where he says ‘sun-shelter up-on’, that means ‘over’ and ‘on’, as in ‘outside’
and ‘inside’, in order to confuse him with regard to whether he is talking
about men or animals, as will be discussed further on. ‘I greeted them
wishing much joy’: this word ‘much’ [‘vilgi’] is presented in a very smart
way, and it is ambiguous, in order that the king might not solve it. now
the pig is called ‘slaughter-piglets’ or ‘will-piglets’. But he alters the word
at the end and thus applies the term ‘vilgi’. Another name for pigs of the
forests is ‘wild boar’ [‘villi-gyltir’], which can also be perceived in this word
‘vilgi’. But in another way the person who set out the riddle has wanted to
suggest ‘men’ with the word (in order to mislead, as he likewise does with
the name of the earls). there has been a king by the name of Vili. He was
Óðinnʼs brother. At a later time there has also been a king named Vili in
Jutland. And in this respect the word means ‘Vili-geats’ or ‘Vili-goths’.
for example when Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld calls the men ‘víl-youthsʼ,
that is ‘sons of Vili’, in the poem ‘Húskarlahvöt’ [‘the Exhortation of the
Household retainers’], which he composed at the request of King Ólafur.
there he says ‘it is time for the warriors to put in hard work’. And when
he says ‘vil-gi teiti’ there is also a double meaning: it often means ‘cheerful-
ness’ or ‘joyfulness’, and he says that he has wished them well, or that they
may preserve the cheerfulness or joyfulness of those Vili-goths. Just as we
call beer ‘joyfulness’, so likewise a king has been able to understand this
name or word ‘joyfulness’ as referring to a non-rational being, as can be
read frequently in old pronouncements, as is witnessed particularly in the
obscure ‘Hávamál’ [‘Sayings of the High one’]: ‘thus is the love of women,
of those who are deceitful, who would drive a horse without hoof-spikes
onto slippery ice, a spirited two-year-old and hardly broken.’ Here one
can note that the young riding-steed is called ‘spirited’. We call a young
steed ‘glad-belly’ (?). now follows the name of the earls, where he says ‘the
earls drank beer silently. ʼ And ‘earl’ is given here as the term for both the
uppermost chieftains who bore that title in bygone days (and it seemed
O E D I P U S I N D U S T R I U S A E N I G M A T U M I S L A N D I C O R U M
GRIPLA XXVI. - 12.12.B.indd 263 12/13/15 8:25:01 PM