Gripla - 2022, Page 102

GRIPLA100
In his notes to the edition of the saga Einar Ól. Sveinsson discusses prob-
lems posed by the second helming.64 In his reading, skǫfnungar, normally
‘shin-bones’, are reinforcements to shields, and their “beast” is then the
warrior characterized by the shield. More likely is that the bovine shin-
bones supply the two sides of a scabbard so that the beast in question is a
sword. The editor cites earlier scholarship which proposes that an obscene
double entendre is at work here and consequently, deferential to the tastes
of his times (1934), simply omits this part of the questionable helming.
McTurk’s translation from 1999 boldly asserts a very different reading:
Yet whenever we share a bed,
we have not a care in the world,
so dear is your love-hair’s island [love-hair’s island; sea-goddess
sea-goddess, to my sword. (Freyja): woman
[sword: penis]65
For this interpretation to be valid, the couple’s long deferred physical con-
summation would have had to have taken place. Yet neither the accompa-
nying prose, comment by Steingerðr, nor other verses by the poet suggest
that this is the case. And, indeed, this would entail that the witch’s curse
had finally been overcome. On the basis of her reaction to the scurrilous
equine stanza, discussed below, one might also have expected some public
expression of outrage, if the stanza had circulated. This tangled situation
suggests that the poet, or whoever is composing as Kormákr at this point,
has invoked the trope of tvíræði, i.e., that there is both an overt and a cov-
ert meaning. The former would be that the warrior relaxes into the bed,
the mattress of which may be filled with husks, like the draff or sediment
from malted barley, and is covered with a down coverlet. The latter, the
subtext, would see a sword in the kenning, representing the penis, and
exploit a slightly different valence for drafnar (< draf ‘husks, sediment,
draff’) that highlights the decomposition of sediment from malted barley.66
In the presence of McTurk’s “love-hair’s island” or mons veneris, the poet’s
organ is made flaccid, the most concrete expression thus far of Þórveig’s
64 Kormáks saga, ch. 19, 272–73, st. 59, n. 1.
65 Kormak’s saga, ch. 19, 211.
66 An Icelandic-English Dictionary, s.v.