Þoku-vísur (Fog verses)

Welcome Back, My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends!

It does, however, go on hiatus without warning.  I apologize for the past three or four weeks of silence.  Between the holidays, an attack of personal life revolving around getting my daughter back to college, and just plain dog-laziness, I haven´t written in about a month.  But this week, things are coming back.

So, you get two verses for the price of one today.  Both are Þoku-vísur [Fog verses]. They are inspired by a picture that a friend posted to FaceBook and by a verse from Þorleifs þáttr jarlsskálds. The poem, Jarlsnið contains a helmingr from a lost poem called þoku-vísur (Fog Verses). The helmingr is as follows:

Þoku dregr upp et eystra,
él festisk et vestra, 
mǫkkr mun náms, af nøkkvi, 
naðrbings kominn hingat.

I make it out to mean (in prose order):

The fog rises in the east, the snow grows to the west -
The mind studies the clouds, the snake-bed ship comes to the journey.

Between one thing and another, I am fascinated by making the fog come to life in some verses. You have two un-connected verses here. The only relationship between them is the metaphor of the fog. The first is in the first-person - a personification of fog.  The second is in the second-person, addressed to the unnamed person experiencing a fog.

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Old Icelandic	Line-by-Line Translation	Prose-Order Translation
Dregg ek up a Eystra - jaga ek a lappar; þyrja fold ek fetum - fjall ok fjörðu halda. Hlymr þagga hrossa - hjaldr breiða skjaldar: rauðu grá-fá hræflóð en rekja mara ekka. Hlébarð sigltu hjúpat hanka á ólginn jölla - vápn-þrumu vánar, vig-stríða þu sæki. Blindað-þoku bana- blígja aum-lig á draum-skrok; hvískum váfa hvæsa hvaðan aefa heyra.	Rise I up in the East - hunt on cat´s paws; I sweep over the fields - fells and firths I hold. hoofbeats I silence horse´s - uproar cloak shield´s: red gray-paint I carrion-flood - but unwind nightmares sobbing. Bear sail you shrouded cleat's to the swell of strife - weapon-thunder desire, spear-strife you seek. Fog-blind, death's gaze piteously at dream-fiend; whispering ghosts hissing from all sides you hear.	I rise in the east (and) hunt on cat's paws; I sweep over the fields (and) hold fells and flords. I silence horse's hoofbeats (and) cloak the shield's uproar; I gray-paint the red carrion-flood, but unwind sobbing nightmares. You sail the shrouded cleat-bear to the swell of strife - weapon-thunder you desire, spear-strife you seek. You gaze fog-blind at death´s nightmares From all sides you hear the hissing ghost whisper

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Kennings Used

VERSE ONE:


hjaldr skjaldar  >  uproar of shields  >  BATTLE
hræflóð  >  carrion-flood  > BLOOD


VERSE TWO:


Hlébarð hanka >  bear of the cleat  >  SHIP
draum-skrok  >  dream-phantom  >  NIGHTMARE


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