Note to Rloð Lv 6^VIII (Ragn 10)

[1-4]: (a) As Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 202) notes, the readings sá ek in l. 1 and to a lesser extent lagða in l. 4, both suggested by Bugge (1876, 403), find support in the 147 text, with which Bugge was evidently already familiar in 1876, since he refers to the reading ‘lagðann der besten hds.’ (‘of the best ms.’), cf. the Introduction and Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, lxxxix, xcv). In l. 1, Sá ek engum ‘In no-one’s (eyes) have I seen …’ is originally Bugge’s (1876, 403) emended reading, also adopted by Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ), Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) and the present ed. (b) Both Rafn (FSN) and Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) follow 1824b in normalising to sjá er in l. 1 and both read l. 4 as bráð háls traumi logða, making it difficult to extract a meaning from the half-stanza as a whole (on Skj B’s and Skald’s emendation to svá eru in l. 1, see (d) below). Without discussing ll. 2-3, Bugge (1876, 403) reads l. 4 as bráð háls trǫnu lagða ‘food of the throat of the crane [SNAKE] placed …’ with lagða as f. acc. sg. agreeing with bráð ‘food, meat’, and the latter forming the acc. subject of a passive inf. (vera lagða ‘be/being placed’, with vera omitted, in an acc. and inf. construction dependent on Sá ek ‘I saw, I have seen’, in l. 1. Bugge’s understanding of the half-stanza is thus that the speaker, Ragnarr, saw a snake placed in the eyes of no-one but those of his son Sigurðr. Bugge’s interpretation leaves unanswered the question of how to interpret brúna in l. 3. Is it gen. pl. of brún, f. ‘brow’ or the adj. brúnn ‘brown’, here in the f. acc. sg., agreeing with bráð ‘food’? The former seems on the face of it unlikely, given that brúnsteinn ‘brow-stone’, as Ragn 9/2, above, shows, is an adequate kenning for ‘eye’ (cf. also Ragn 14/6, below), and the kenning brúnsteinn brúna ‘brow-stone of brows’ would surely be tautologous. (c) Olsen considers as a possibility the heavily emended sequence tauma brúðar bergjarls ‘reins of the bride of the rock-ruler [GIANT > GIANTESS > SNAKES]’, taking brúna ‘brown’ as m. acc. pl., agreeing with tauma ‘reins’ (l. 4); in his edited text, however, he takes up Finnur Jónsson’s suggestion of brúnir taumar barðhjarls ‘brown reins of the craggy earth’ (cf. Skj B), also meaning ‘snakes’, though with brúna and tauma in the acc. (as opposed to Finnur’s nom., see further below). In each of these two possible readings tauma is to be seen as the acc. subject of the passive inf. vera lagða ‘be/being placed’ (with vera understood) in the acc. and inf. construction dependent on Sá ek ‘I saw’, l. 1. Eskeland (Ragn 1944) follows the first of these two readings in his translation, but adopts the second (with the spelling barðjarls, understood as ‘of earth’) in his text. Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ) and Ebel (Ragn 2003) also follow Olsen’s finally chosen reading of ll. 3-4 (i.e. í brunsteinum brúna | barðhjarls tauma lagða), as does Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985), except that Örnólfur has barðhalls, gen. of barðhallr ‘cliff, slope beneath a mountain rim’, in place of Olsen’s barðhjarls, while also taking it as the determinant in a kenning meaning ‘snakes’. (d) It remains to consider the readings of Finnur Jónsson in Skj B and Kock in Skald. Both are in agreement in emending the 1824b readings ‘sea er’ and ‘tuarmí logda’ to svá eru and taumir lagðir (m. nom. pl.) in ll. 1 and 4 respectively, so producing the meaning ‘Thus are … reins placed …’. Finnur, moreover, also emends to brúnir ‘brown’, m. nom. pl. adj., to agree with taumar ‘reins’, and reads barðhjarls ‘of craggy earth’ in l. 4, as indicated above, giving the overall meaning: ‘So brown reins of craggy earth [SNAKES] are placed in no boy’s eyes but those of Sigurðr alone’. (e) Kock (NN §1452) objects to these two emendations. In l. 3 he normalises to brúna, understanding this as gen. pl. of brún, f., ‘brow’, and sees the first element, brún-, in brúnsteinum as adjectival, meaning either ‘brown’ or ‘bright, glittering’. In l. 4 he normalises to bráðhalls ‘precipitous cliff’, again taking the first element in the word as adjectival, having the function of intensifying the steepness of the cliff signified by the second element, ‑hallr, m. He thus removes the need for emendation in these two cases, but retains, with Skj B, the emended nom. pl. readings taumar lagðir ‘reins placed’ necessitated by the emendation to Svá eru ‘Thus are…’ in l. 1. (f) The present edn accepts from 147 the Sá ek ‘I have seen’ reading in l. 1, takes brúnsteinum, dat. pl., ‘brow-stones’ in l. 3 as a straightforward kenning for ‘eyes’ (cf. Ragn 9/2 and 14/6, and brásteinar ‘eyelash-stones’, Anon Pét 45/4^VII), and brúna ‘brown, bright, glittering’ in l. 3 as an acc. pl. m. adj. qualifying and agreeing grammatically with tauma lagða ‘reins placed’ in l. 4 and forming with them part of the acc. and inf. construction introduced by the opening words of the stanza. This involves minimal emendation. The present ed. also prefers Kock’s NN §1452 reading bráðhalls ‘(of a) precipitous cliff’ in l. 4 (involving no emendation) to his subsequently emended form bráðhjarls ‘(of) precipitous earth?’ in Skald.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Bugge, Sophus. 1876. ‘Hamðismál: Aus den Vorarbeiten zu einer neuen Ausgabe der sogenannten Sæmundar Edda’. ZDP 7, 377-406.
8. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
9. Ragn 1944 = Eskeland, Severin, ed. and trans. 1944. Soga om Ragnar Lodbrok med Kråka-kvædet. Norrøne bokverk 16. 2nd ed. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. [1st ed. 1914].
10. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
11. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
12. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
13. Internal references
14. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 4 June 2024)
15. David McDougall 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Pétrsdrápa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 796-844. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1038> (accessed 4 June 2024)
16. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 9 (Ragnarr loðbrók, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 642.
17. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 14 (Eiríkr Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 4)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 653.