Singasteinn

''Húsdrápa''

The scene is described in the skald Úlfr Uggason's Húsdrápa, as found in the 13th century Icelandic Prose Edda:

Interpretations

In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson interprets Singasteinn as the skerry at which Loki and Heimdall fought. Referring to the same poem, he says that Heimdall may be called "Frequenter of Vágasker ["waves-skerry"] and Singasteinn"; this gives another name for the skerry and this is also where he states that they were in the form of seals, showing that there was more of the poem on this story. Brodeur has followed Snorri in his translation, and so have some scholarly analyses. For example, Gabriel Turville-Petre says, "Singasteinn was evidently a rock far out at sea." Viktor Rydberg, following Snorri in seeing the struggle as over Freyja's necklace Brísingamen, went a step further and saw the necklace as having been lying on the skerry.

Alternatively at singasteini has been taken to refer to what Heimdall and Loki were fighting over, parallel to the hafnýra fǫgru, "beautiful sea-kidney" (which Brodeur rendered as simply "stone"). In this light, there is an attractive emendation of singasteini to signasteini, "magic stone, amulet." Several scholars have pointed out that both "sea-kidney" and "magic stone" fit less well with Brísingamen, a necklace, than with Caribbean drift-seeds that can be found on the beaches of Iceland, Orkney, the Hebrides and the Scandinavian mainland and have been traditionally used as amulets, particularly to ease childbirth; their European names include vettenyrer, wight (Old Norse vættr) kidneys.

References

Sources

• Kurt Schier. "Húsdrápa 2. Heimdall, Loki und die Meerniere." in Helmut Birkhan, ed. Festgabe für Otto Höfler zum 75. Geburtstag. Philologica Germanica 3. Vienna: Braumüller, 1976. . 577–88 - an influential exposition of the location interpretation .
• Birger Pering. Heimdall: Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Verständnis der altnordischen Götterwelt. Diss. Lund University. Lund: Gleerup, 1941. - the first exposition of the birthstone interpretation .

References

1. link. (2011-07-06 '' verse 2, Skaldic Project Academic Body, University of Sydney, retrieved June 2, 2010.)
2. [[Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur]], ''The Prose Edda'', New York: American Scandinavian Foundation, 1916, {{OCLC
3. ''tilsækir Vágaskers ok Singasteins'', ''Skáldskaparmál'' ch. 15; Brodeur translation [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ls2F5i6_LeYC&q=Frequenter&pg=PA268 p. 113], Old Norse text in parallel at [http://www.voluspa.org/skaldskaparmal11-20.htm voluspa.org].
4. Wilhelm Heizmann, "Der Raub des Brísingamen, oder: Worum geht es in ''Húsdrápa'' 2?" ''Analecta Septentrionalia: Papers on the History of North Germanic Culture and Literature'', Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Ergänzungsbände 65, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2009, {{ISBN. de suggests that Vágasker was simply Snorri's interpretation of Singasteinn, which was unclear to him.
5. [[Gabriel Turville-Petre. E.O.G. Turville Petre]], ''Myth and Religion of the North'', London, Weidenfeld, 1964, {{OCLC
6. [[Viktor Rydberg]], ''Teutonic Mythology'', tr. Rasmus B. Anderson, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1889, {{OCLC
7. Audrey Meaney, "Drift Seeds and the Brísingamen", ''Folklore'' 94.1 (1983) 33–39, [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1260165 p. 33].
8. [[Jan de Vries (linguist). Jan de Vries]], ''Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte'', Volume 2, 2nd ed. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1957, repr. as 3rd ed. 1970, {{OCLC. 466619179, pp. 260, 311–12 {{in lang. de, using this as the basis for arguing that Brísingamen only later came to be thought of as a ''man'', a necklace, after the original idea of an amulet bound on the hips had faded.
9. Heizmann, [https://books.google.com/books?id=KtubHqCa2HAC&q=vettenyrer&pg=PA512 p. 512] says this connection has been made "fairly often."
10. Franz Rolf Schröder, "Heimdall," ''[[Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur]]'' (''PBB'') 89 (1967) 1–41 {{in lang