Note to Rloð Lv 10^VIII (Ragn 27)

[5] hrína ‘squeal’: This verb is understood here to refer to the young pigs of the first helmingr, and thus to form part of the syntax and sense of ll. 1-5. When applied to animals hrína indicates a high-pitched and penetrating sound (as of swine, LP: hrína; CVC: hrína A). CPB II, 351 translates the verb ‘hiss’ and makes it refer to the snakes (ormar) of l. 6, but there is no evidence that the meaning of this verb extended to noises supposed to be made by snakes. Other eds emend hrína. (a) Adopting here from Eg 23/8^V the verb hváta as understood by Finnur Jónsson (1886-8, 379) in the meaning ‘thrust, stick in’, Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 213) substitutes it for hrína by emendation, and places hafa mik sogit ‘(they) have sucked me’ (l. 6) in brackets; he is followed here by Eskeland (Ragn 1944) and Ebel (Ragn 2003), and also (though with commas rather than brackets) by Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ) and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985). Olsen’s rather awkward translation, followed by Eskeland and Örnólfur, amounts to: ‘the snakes dig their snouts in and dig hard; they have sucked me’. (b) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), who emends gnótt ‘sufficiency’ to góinn ‘snake’ in l. 3 (see Note to l. 3, above) emends hrína in l. 5 to hroknir ‘curled, coiled’, m. nom. pl. p. p. of hrøkkva in the intransitive sense of ‘curl’. He places semi-colons at the ends of ll. 2, 4 and 6, and a comma at the end of l. 3, and his Danish translation of ll. 3-6 reads as follows: ormen er mig til fordærv; de graver sig ind med deres snabler; og de bugtede ormer har suget mig kraftig ‘the snake (sg.) is my bane; they are digging their way in with their snouts; and the coiled snakes have sucked me vigorously’. The word snabel, pl. snabler, ‘proboscis, (elephant’s) trunk’, translated here as ‘snout’, has that meaning in Danish only in colloquial usage; the expected word for a pig’s snout would be tryne, pl. tryner. While digging in with snouts is more what would be expected of pigs than of snakes (should l. 3 be taken as having future reference (‘they will dig in…’), heralding the sons’ vengeance?) , the emendation to hroknir, together with the emendation to góinn in l. 3, seems to suggest that Finnur sees ll. 4-6 as referring exclusively to the snakes, cf. LP: rani. His translation leaves some doubt in the matter, however. Kock (Skald), who gives no translation and does not emend gnótt in l. 3, otherwise adopts Finnur’s punctuation (though with full stops in place of semi-colons) and the emendation to hroknir.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
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. Finnur Jónsson. 1886a. ‘Lønskrift og lejlighedsoptegnelser fra et par islandske håndskrifter’. In Kålund et al. 1884-91, 185-94.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
9. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
10. 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].
11. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
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. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 23 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 16)’ 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. 210.