Note to EirRagn Lv 1^VIII (Ragn 11)

[6-8]: Apart from Rafn (FSN), who in l. 6 adopts from 1824b the apparently meaningless reading menn ok eptir öl drekka, all eds follow Hb here, reading l. 6 as mun ek efstr of val deyja ‘I will die uppermost (i.e. ‘last’, as CPB has it) on the heap of the slain’. These eds apart from Kock and Örnólfur Thorsson (see below) also take the first word of l. 8, gör ‘prepared’, as gerr, gǫrr m. nom. sg. ‘prepared, ready’ and as referring predicatively to ek, the speaker of the stanza, thus giving the meaning ‘I, ready (as I am to do so), will die’, etc. (Rafn, FSN, and Ragn 1906-8, 139, read this word in 1824b as geir and geirr (acc. and nom. sg. of geirr m. ‘spear’?) respectively, giving little sense in the context; Skj A’s 1824b reading ‘gera’, yielding even less sense, is correct, however.) In l. 6 the present edn adopts from Hb only the words mun ek, understanding eptir ‘afterwards’ as adverbial here and the line as referring to the drinking of ale after death in Valhǫll (cf. Grí 36/9). In l. 8 the present edn follows Kock, Skald (gǫr), and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) (gjör), in taking the adj. gör as n. acc. pl. and referring attributively to geirtré ‘prepared spears, spears prepared (for the purpose)’, in the previous line. This, as Kock (NN §1453) argues, seems a more natural explanation of the syntax of the passage than that which would seek to link the adj. to the 1st pers. pron. ek of l. 6.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
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. 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.
7. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
8. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
9. Internal references
10. Not published: do not cite ()