Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 29 (Angantýr Arngrímsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 390.
Hervör, dóttir, hví kallar svá?
Full feiknstafa ferr þú þér at illu.
Ær ertu orðin ok örvita;
villhyggjandi, vekr dauða menn.
Hervör, dóttir, hví kallar svá? Full feiknstafa ferr þú illu at þér. Ertu orðin ær ok örvita; villhyggjandi, vekr dauða menn.
‘Hervǫr, daughter, why do you call thus? Full of curses, you carry on to your detriment. You have become mad and unhinged; reasoning astray, you wake dead men. ’
A prose interjection in R715ˣ reads (Heiðr 1924, 108): I þui bili opnudust haugarnir, og var allt at sia sem logi eirn, ok þa var þetta kuedid i haugi Anganntyrs ‘At that moment the mounds opened, and everything was like a single flame to look at, and then this was said in Angantýr’s mound’.
The draugr or animate, corporeal ghost of a deceased person, in particular the inhabitant of a burial mound (LP; Fritzner; CVC; cf. haugbúi ‘mound-dweller’) is a common figure in Old Norse literature. The revenant may remain inside the mysteriously-opened mound (see Heiðr 22/6), as Angantýr does here, or break out to interact with (often haunt) the living (see Chadwick 1946 for comprehensive examples and discussion). The recitation of verse is a characteristic commonly associated with draugar (ibid., 61-5 and 106-18); for a situation similar to the present one, see Nj ch. 78, in which the mound of Gunnarr Hámundarson opens and he is heard to recite poetry (GunnHám Lv 14V (Nj 29)), although in that instance there is no-one involved in dialogue with him. SnSt Ht 30III exemplifies a metre called there draughent, though it is not clear whether this means ‘ghost-rhymed’ or ‘trunk-rhymed’ (see Note to [All] there). — A prose context similar to that given at this point in R715ˣ occurs slightly later in the exchange in the other mss, before Angantýr Lv 3 (Heiðr 32). That stanza does not appear in R715ˣ, however.
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
Hervör, dóttir,
hví kallar svá?
Full feiknstafa
ferr þú þér at illu.
Ær ertu orðin
ok örvita;
villhyggjandi,
vekr menn dauða .
Hervör, dóttir,
hvat kallar svá?
Full feiknstafa
ferr þú þér at illu.
Ær ertu orðin
ok örvita;
villhyggjandi,
vekr upp dauða menn.
hervor dottir hvat kallar svo fvllfeíkn stafa fer | þv þer at illv ær ertv ordiɴ ok ꜹrvítí vill hyɢíandí vekr vpp d | avda menn
(HA)
Hervör, dóttir,
hví kallar svá?
Full feiknstafa
ferr þú at illu.
óð ertu orðin
ok örvita;
villhyggjandi,
vekja dauða menn.
hervor | dottir hui kallar so fullfeikn stafa | fer þu ad illu od ertu ordinn j orvita | vill higgiandi vekia dauda menn
(HA)
Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 5. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Hervararsaga III 5: AII, 246, BII, 266, Skald II, 138; Heiðr 1672, 92, FSN 1, 436, 520, Heiðr 1873, 215-16, 317, Heiðr 1924, 24, 108-9, FSGJ 2, 16-17, Heiðr 1960, 15; Edd. Min. 16.
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