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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to KrákÁsl Lv 4VIII (Ragn 6)

[1-4]: The interpretation of these lines has been controversial, largely on account of eds’ disputed readings of the first two words of l. 3. The difficulty of interpretation thus arising is in spite of the fact that there is considerable similarity of wording, and apparently of meaning, between these lines and KormǪ Lv 41/1-4V(Korm 60), in which Kormákr Ǫgmundarson speaks of having slept with Steingerðr Þorkelsdóttir for five nights. (a) Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) removes vit ‘we two’ from l. 4 and substitutes it for nætr ‘nights’ in l. 1; emends þessar ‘these’ to þreyja ‘pine’ in l. 1; and replaces hressvar in l. 3 with hösvar ‘dark’, thus giving the meaning: ‘we two are to spend three dark nights pining, and yet living together, in the hall, before we sacrifice to the holy gods’. Valdimar’s italics show that hösvar was one of the readings supplied to him by Jón Þorkelsson (see the Introduction), and it is not certain whether this reading was Jón’s own idea or whether he derived it from 147, in which both Finnur Jónsson (Skj AII, 233) and Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 179, 199) thought they could read hǫsvar. It appears in any case from the most recent scrutiny of 147 that this ms. cannot supply the form hösvar (it in fact has ‘huessar’, see the Readings, above). (b) Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 198-9), acknowledging help from Finnur Jónsson and producing the same text as in Skj B, also removes vit from l. 4 and substitutes it for nætr in l. 1. He retains the reading þessar in l. 1, and in l. 3 emends 1824b’s hressvar to hvárt sér ‘each (of us) apart’, thus producing the meaning: ‘let us two live for these three nights in the hall, the two of us apart, and yet together, before we sacrifice …’. Olsen and Skj B are followed here by Eskeland (Ragn 1944), Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ), and Ebel (Ragn 2003). (c) Kock (Skald) removes nætr from l. 1 and vit from l. 4, placing vit in l. 1 after rather than before skulum. In place of hressvar in l. 3 he, too, adopts the (mis)reading hösvar (cf. (a), above).  He understands ok þó in l. 2 not as adversative (‘and yet’) but rather as corroborative (‘and moreover’) (NN §§647, 1451). His understanding of ll. 1-3 is thus: ‘We two are to live for these three dark nights in the hall, and, what is more, together …’. (d) Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) on the other hand, while also adopting the form hösvar (cf. (a), above), understands it as ‘dull, colourless’, and takes þó in l. 2 as adversative (i.e. ‘we shall spend three dull nights in the hall … and yet live/sleep together’). (e) The present ed. follows Kock in preferring the corroborative meaning of ok þó ‘and moreover’ to the adversative ‘and yet’ in l. 2. While the obscurity of l. 3 makes it difficult to establish a clear overall meaning for the first half-stanza, it does seem that the stanza as a whole is conveying in its two halves the idea of a positive-negative opposition between what is proposed in the first half and its result as envisaged in the second, and that the adversative understanding of þó ‘nevertheless’, consequently, is more appropriate at l. 5 than at l. 2. See further Notes to ll. 3 and 5-6 below.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  3. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  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. Olsen, Magnus, ed. 1906-8. Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar. SUGNL 36. Copenhagen: Møller.
  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. Not published: do not cite (SteingV)
  15. Edith Marold (ed.) 2022, ‘Kormáks saga 60 (Kormákr Ǫgmundarson, Lausavísur 41)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1130.

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