SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

140 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
examples of verbal puns or verbal riddles based on
homophony or seeming identity of words of different
meaning, like the English (verb) see, sea (ocean), (bishop's)
see, c (the letter). In English, as here, there is sometimes
a variety of spelling to keep the words apart. In Snorri's
examples some might have an accented vowel, others not.
That would make for difference in pronunciation, so that
they would not become homonyms except on paper.
Among other things Snorri lists several meanings of the
form lio(r) , some of them being different words:
Lio(r) is a joint where bones meet in a man, lio is a ship, lio
is people, lio, too, is help that one man gives to another; lio is
called ale. Hiio is a doorway in a fence, men call oxen
a hlio(r) , and hlio is a slope. These terms can be so put in
poetry as to make the passage 'too clear' (oflj6st), so that it will
be difficult to understand, if another term is used than one
would have expected from the previous verse-lines.
It seems fairly certain that Snorri coined the term oftj6st,
"too clear", for such riddles with his tongue in his cheek.
A young Icelandic scholar, Olafur M. Olafsson, claims
that scholars have as yet overlooked much oflj6st punning
in skaldic poetry. A verse by Egill Skalla-Grimsson reads
in quick translation: "I feel lonesome, lying alone, an old,
old carl, on the king's defences." Everything is clear
except the last line. But Olafur explains it. The "kings
defences" must be men, but men are also, according to
Snorri, dunn "down", and lying on down needs no
explanation in a land of eiderducks.P
A special and probably an extremely ancient kind of
oftj6st or punning are the riddles connected with the runic
names. If our guesses about the origin of sacred tree
names and gods' names in kennings are correct, the runic
riddles ought not to be younger. We have an Old
English poet like Cynewulf of the eighth century who
conceals or reveals his name in runes. This practice was
continued up to the present day by composers of rimur in
Iceland.
12 A goou daigri: afmCEliskveoja til Siguroa» Nordals (r95r), rza.