Hrørnar Þǫll

Þrjár myndir ú Hávamálum

Útdráttur

Strophe 50 of Hávamál is essentially a simile, in which a natural feature is compared to a human condition. The first half of the strophe presents a visual image of a þǫll Strophe 50 of Hávamál is essentially a simile, in which a natural feature is compared to a human condition. The first half of the strophe presents a visual image of a þǫll (fem. 'a young fir tree'), bereft of its bark and needles, withering away on a þorp (= 'a stony hill'?). In the second half, this pathetic picture is likened to a man whom no one loves. „Why should he live long?" It seems reasonable to assume that the þoil in the first half represents a young woman who, like the man in the second half, is not protected by other people's love. A British scholar David A. H. Evans has suggested that the doomed þǫll actually grew among farmhouses but, considering that he ignores the semantic difference between the ON prepositions á (= 'on') and í (= 'in'), it is not easy to make sense of his proposal. The Icelandic farm name Þorpar and such expressions as út um þorp og grundir and út um þorpagrundir serve to support the notion that þorp may have denoted 'an open exposed place, where the soil was stony'. There are only two other strophes in the poem with a similar structure as Hávamál 50. One is strophe 62, depicting an arrogant eagle flying down to the sea in search of food. Such a bird of prey is compared to a man who comes an assembly where there is he has no one who is willing to speak up for him. The other example is strophe 78, contrasting on the one hand the erstwhile well-stocked sheep-folds of the Fitjung's sons and on the other the fact that now they have become beggars. Wealth is ficklest of friends. Numerous Latin sententiae as well as two strophes in Hugsvinnsmál that are structured in the same manner as Hávamál 50, 62, and 78 serve to strengthen the impression that we are ultimately dealing with a stylistic feature that was based on foreign models.