Gripla - 2020, Qupperneq 205

GRIPLA204
1931): “andspillir, m, som fører samtaler (med en anden), fortrolig ven,
a. Agða (om Gisle) GSúrs 14”.12 In his skaldic edition, Finnur translates
the kenning in accordance with Sveinbjörn’s analysis as “Egdernes ven
(Nordmanden, mig)”.13 In the appendix with verse commentary in his
1929 edition of Gísla saga, Finnur does, however, allow for some doubt as
to how this expression should be interpreted:
Egða andspillir, ‘som fører samtaler med Agderne’, Gisle selv; det er
usikkert, om Gisle bruger ‘Agderne’ som et slags pars pro toto, =
Nordmænd i almlh., eller om der mulig ligger noget bestemt — for
os ukendt — til grund for denne betegnelse; i mangel heraf må vi
holde os til det første.14
Here, Finnur touches on something important: a kenning does not neces-
sarily have to be an empty label, where the different parts reveal nothing
specific about the person or object involved; in some instances, a kenning
can be characterizing or even situational, in cases where the separate parts
of the kenning form a whole that, for instance, characterizes a person,
in either a general way or by linkage to the actual situation in the poem.
Snorri Sturluson, the great master of Old Norse skaldic art, was aware of
this, and in his skáldskaparmál he introduces the terms viðkenning, sann-
kenning and fornafn, used of kennings for persons where there is a closer
tie between the reference (the kenning) and the referent (the person) than
in “conventional” kennings:
Enn eru þau heiti er menn láta ganga fyrir nǫfn manna. Þat kǫllum
vér viðkenningar eða sannkenningar eða fornǫfn. Þat eru viðkenn-
ingar at nefna annan hlut réttu nafni ok kalla þann er hann vill nefna
eiganda eða svá at kalla hann þess er hann nefndi fǫður eða afa; ái er
hinn þriði. Heitir ok sonr ok arfi, arfuni, barn, jóð ok mǫgr, erfingi.
[…] Þessi heiti kǫllum vér viðkenningar ok svá þótt maðr sé kendr
12 Lex.poet., s.v. andspillir.
13 skj., B, 1, 99. The same interpretation is found in Vestfirðinga sǫgur, ed. by Björn K.
Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson, 71 (“málvinur Egða: Norðmaður, Gísli Súrsson”) and in
many translations of Gísla saga into modern languages.
14 Gísla saga súrssonar. Udgiven efter håndskrifterne af Det kongelige nordiske Oldskrift-
Selskab, ed. by Finnur Jónsson (København: Gyldendalske Boghandel / Nordisk Forlag,
1929), 100.