Note to Anon Bjark 7^III

[All]: This stanza is in direct speech mode, but neither the speaker nor the addressee can be identified, nor can the person who is threatened with strangulation. No source for it, aside from its recording in LaufE, is known, though it is also in RE 1665(Ee2). Faulkes (LaufE 1979, 265 n.) suggests it may have been derived from leaves from W that are now lost. However, it is possible that a remark attributed to Bǫðvarr bjarki in the prose of Hrólf is a version of that part of Bjark from which this helmingr comes. After Hrólfr kraki has fallen, Bǫðvarr rails bitterly against what he identifies as Óðinn’s role in causing his lord’s death, calling him foul and faithless and threatening that, if he were able to identify him, skylda ek kreista hann sem annan vesta ok minnsta mýsling (Hrólf 1960, 122 normalised) ‘I would squeeze him like some other vilest and tiniest mousling’. Here we find an implicit equation between the speaker (Bǫðvarr) and his victim (Óðinn) in terms of the hostility of a cat to a mouse, as the kenning of Bjark 7 also indicates. A similar but less graphic threat is recorded by Saxo (Saxo 2015, I, ii. 7. 27, pp. 138-9) without the cat-mouse comparison.

References

1. Bibliography
2. LaufE 1979 = Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 1979. Edda Magnúsar Ólafssonar (Laufás Edda). RSÁM 13. Vol. I of Two Versions of Snorra Edda from the 17th Century. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977-9.
3. Hrólf 1960 = Slay, Desmond, ed. 1960a. Hrólfs saga kráka. EA B 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
4. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. Internal references
6. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Bjarkamál in fornu 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 505.
7. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hrólfs saga kraka’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 539. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=73> (accessed 7 May 2024)
8. Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Bjarkamál in fornu’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 495. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1006> (accessed 7 May 2024)
9. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10928> (accessed 7 May 2024)