Friday, February 24, 2012

A New Verse: Snæ-skála (Snow-scales)

Finally, I have gotten a new verse written.  Yesterday was an interesting day, weather-wise, as we went from the 50's on Wednesday to an ice-snow mix that had to be scraped from the cars Thursday morning. It inspired the following verse:

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Old Norse Line-order Translation Prose-order Translation
Snærliga búland snerta
snæ-skála al-kalinn -
hækinn maðr heklu
handar svella fanga.
Gjalda ljós-gim gullin
garmr-hrót ok jarð-eldr -
hvítum smiðja-hitu
hæru-Iðjas þiða.
Briskly home-land touches
snow-of-scales frozen -
greedy men hooded
ice sheets of the hand capture.
Yields light-gem golden
roof-wolf and earth-fire
white smith-hot
hair of Iðja melts.
Frozen snow-of-scales
briskly touches home-land -
Greedy hooded man
captures ice-sheets of the hand.
The golden light gem yields
roof-wolf and earth-fire -
(and) smith-hot melts
the white hair of Iðja.

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NOTES:


The poem works with an extended kenning, silver for ice. It is meant to present the scraping of ice into piles and the subsequent metlting of the ice by the sun´s rays. In a circular fashion, it uses "snow/ice" kennings for silver.

snæ-skála > snow of scales > SILVER
handar svella > ice-sheets of the hand > SILVER
ljós-gim > light-jewel > SUN
garmr-hrót > roof-wolf > FIRE
jarð-eldr > earth-fire > LAVA
hvítum hæru-Iðja > white hair of Iðja (a giant) > SILVER

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HOW AM I DOING?

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