SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Kattar Sonr 145
makellos":" Neckel gives "kuhn, keck'l.! Sophus Bugge
writes: "neiss betyder skamfuld, oneiss siges derfor om
den som ikke skamfuld holder sig tilbage, men som kja-k
gaar i spidsen og udmserker sig, oneiss betyder ikke
udadlelig"." Bugge connects kattar son with the name
of the Irish king, Carpre Caitchenn, a point to which
I shall return later. Finally, Finnur Jonsson also
speaks of the use of oneiss in HH I with the words "hvor
dog betydn. 'ikke skamfuld' = 'frrek' kunde vrere den
rigtige". 6
It is doubtless right to take the word koeoinn. to mean
not that Signin had told Hoobrodd himself that he was
oneiss like the son of a cat, but that she had said it about
him when her father proposed the marriage to her. But
it also implies that she cannot accept him without loss of
honour.
But what exactly did she mean?
The adj. oneiss means "not neiss", We must first try
to decide the significance of this word. In verse it occurs
only once, Hdvamdl 49.
Va5ir minar gaf ek velli at
tveim tremonnum :
rekkar pat p6ttoz er peir ript hofrio ;
neiss er nokkvior halr.
In prose I have also only found it once. Fritzner cites
the Norwegian text of Barlaams saga, where a king who
has been stripped of his clothes and sent to a deserted
island to starve to death is described as ncektan oc neisan. 7
The alliterating connection with nektr, nekkvior shows
that the word is neiss and not hneiss, as Fritzner writes it.
3 Vollstandiges w6rterbuch zu den lieder» der Edda (1903), s.v.
• Edda. II Kommentierendes glossar (2. Aufl, 1936), s.v,
• Helge-digtene i den celdre Edda (1896), 46-7.
• Lexicon poeticum. (2. udg. 1931), S.V.
7 R. Keyser og C. R. Unger, Barlaams ok [osaphat« saga (1851), 62.
English evidence suggests that the cliche neiss ok nokkvWr was more widespread
than the Norse sources reveal, see NED s.v, nais: "nais and naked", c. 1300;
"nakid and nais", c. 1325; modern dialect, "nace nyaukit", 1871; NED glosses
"covered with shame, destitute".