Note to ǪrvOdd Ævdr 45VIII (Ǫrv 115)
[8] spjör ‘a spear’: Most eds have emended the mss’ readings here. Both 343a and 173ˣ have spörr (343a ‘spaurr’) which can only mean ‘sparrow’ but this sense does not seem appropriate here. Ms. 471 has spörum, dat. pl. CPB II, 551 has spiörr ‘spears’, which would make good sense, but this noun is normally n. pl. and the verb here (stóð) is sg. However, the noun spjǫr is only found in the pl. and, as Kock has suggested (NN §3290A), it may function as a sg. here. Boer (Ǫrv 1888, 204 n.) proposed that an antecedent ms. of the younger mss, which he designated z, must have read spjót ‘spear’, which was later changed to ǫr ‘arrow’ and then by a later copyist to spǫrr. However, this explanation seems over-complex, and the present edn has assumed the original word to be spjör ‘spears’ used in a sg. sense (following Boer’s argument, Skj B and FSGJ emend to spjót). In Skald Kock retains spǫrr, though this spelling in the sense ‘spear’ is unprecedented.
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
- FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
- Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.