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24
Phillpotts: Sturt. 24
But now the swarthy volcano-giant appears in person,
armed with ilame, which is the only sun men can see in the
awful gloom, the sun of the gods being dimmed by its glare.
The eruption begins, the precipices crash down, the welkin
is rent by the din:
52, Surtr ferr snnnan Sart fares from the sonth
meþ sviga læ ve: with the bane of wood (i.e. fire):
skinn af sverþe there shines from his sword
sól valtiva. the sun of the mighty gods.
Grjótbjyrg gnata, The precipices crash down,
en gifr hrata; the giantesses tumble abont,
troþa haler helveg, men trndge the road to Hel,
en himenn klofhar. and the welkin is rent.
My authority for the translation of lines 3 and 4 is
no less a person than Snorri, who puts it very clearly in hia
paraphrase of the line: — ’sverd hans er gott mj9k, af því
skinn bjartara en af sólu’, of which a literal translation
would be: ’His sword is very good, from it there is a
bright-ness more than that of the sun’. Any other reading has to
pre8uppo8e that valtiva is a genitive singular, not met with
elsewhere, and referring to Surt, which does not at all accord
with the usual signification of tivi (= god, not giant). The
expression himinn Hofnar is still quite common in Iceland,
and is never used except in connection with excessively loud
reports: hence I have ventured to translate it ’the welkin is
rent’, the corresponding English expression. It denotes the
aerial commotion, the trembling of the air, which a volcanic
eruption causes with its terrific initial explosions.
Verse 57 gives the other accompaniments of an
eruption. The sun is darkened: smoke and fire burst forth and
seem to reach up to the very sky:
Sól tér sortna Geisar eime
sigr fold i mar, ok aldrnare,
hverfa af himne leikr h$r hite
heiþar stjernor. viþ himen sjalian.
The first words — sol tér sortna — describe one of
the most characteristic features of an eruption, — the dark-
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