Note to KrákÁsl Lv 11VIII (RagnSon 1) (Kráka/Áslaug)
[2] á hálsum borgar ‘on the heights of the fortress’: The basic sense of háls is ‘neck’ (of a human or animal), but it also has the transferred sense of ‘hill, ridge, mountain pass’, describing a feature of the landscape (Fritzner, ONP: hals). Finnur Jónsson appears to have understood the word in the latter sense (på borgens höje ‘on the hills of the fortress’), in Hb 1892-6, as does the present ed.; in Skj B, however, Finnur emends borgar ‘of the fortress, rampart’ (LP: borg) to bragna, gen. of m. pl. bragnar ‘men’, and translates ‘on the necks of men’, evidently understanding the ravens to be perched on the bodies of the slain. Kock (NN §1469A) suggests either ‘fortress’ or ‘mountain’ for borg as its meaning in the present instance. The translation ‘the heights of the fortress’ is adopted here with an admission that this leaves unexplained which fortress (or (fortified) mountain?) is in question. The prose context in RagnSon gives no help on this point.
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
- Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
- Internal references
- 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 10 May 2024)