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a potential counterargument to the loanword hypothesis involves the
different gender of the words; the old English form *ealdorneru is femi-
nine, whereas old Icelandic aldrnari is masculine. However, this argument
does not weigh heavily for two reasons: first, incongruity in gender assign-
ment is generally common in borrowings,74 and secondly, assuming that
the word was remodeled as an agentive an-stem noun in old Icelandic, it
is only natural that it would be assigned masculine gender because such
nouns are almost always masculine in old Icelandic.75
Given the above considerations, I propose that aldrnari in Völuspá is a
loanword from old English which was remodeled as an agentive an-stem
noun in old Icelandic and interpreted as ‘the one who saves life, lifesaver’.
therefore, a translation of the relevant lines in stanza 54 would be:
…fire rages
against the lifesaver
In view of the theory of Pétur Pétursson that there are biblical themes
in Völuspá, a view primarily founded on a variety of visual and Christian
sources, in particular Doomsday icons, it appears that the ‘lifesaver’ in
question is a ‘savior’, who would then be none other than Jesus Christ.
In fact, Pétur has interpreted the word aldrnari, mainly on non-linguistic
grounds, as a kenning for Christ.76
5. Conclusion
the word aldrnari in old Icelandic appears only in stanza 54 of Völupsá
and in the þulur. the traditional explanations of the word assume that
either it means ‘fire’ or refers to askr Yggdrasils; a further proposal is that it
this is a fair point, in my view the vocalism in this form is a problem for all three accounts:
not only the derivation from old Icelandic næra ‘nourish’, but also the derivation from
Common Germanic *nazjan- ‘save’ and the borrowing from old English. In all three cases
an extra assumption is required to account for the form. Given the problems with the other
possibilities, the assumption that aldrnari is a loanword is the most viable one.
74 for a comprehensive discussion, see Greville Corbett, Gender (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
75 Adolf Noreen, Altnordische Grammatik I. Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut-
und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen, 4th ed. (Halle: niemeyer, 1923),
276.
76 Pétur Pétursson, “Manifest and Latent Biblical themes in Völuspá,” 192.
ALDRNARI