Note to Anon (Ragn) 3VIII (Ragn 33)
[3-4]: Some eds (Ragn 1906-8, 217; Finnur Jónsson (Skj B); Kock (Skald); Eskeland (Ragn 1944); Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ) and Ebel (Ragn 2003) omit þess, n. gen. sg. of sá ‘that’ in l. 4, probably for metrical reasons and possibly because examples of vinna ‘achieve, bring about’, as a transitive verb with a direct object in the gen. are hard to find. As to the gen. form þess in l. 4, it is likely that the verb vinna, occurring here in the supine (unnit) in l. 3, is here being used in the intransitive sense of ‘act, function’, and that þess er has here the meaning of ‘in such a way that’ (see LP: sá 3). Alternatively, it is possible that we have here in truncated form an instance of the verb being used, also intransitively, in the phrase at vinna til e-s, ‘attain to sth.’, with the prep. til ‘to’ omitted. Neither alternative need discourage the use in translation of a verb used transitively meaning ‘accomplish’ or ‘achieve’, however.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
- Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
- 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].
- Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.