[8] drengr (m. nom. sg.) ‘warrior’: Drengr can mean ‘(young) man, (manly) man, warrior, servant’ (see Fritzner: drengr; LP: drengr; SnE 1998, II, 258; Goetting 2006). Because Þorgils is addressing King Haraldr, ‘warrior’ is chosen here. Skj B, which adopts the F variant dúði (3rd pers. sg. pret. indic.) ‘shook’ in l. 7 (so also Skald), has svenden ‘young man’ (i.e. Þorgils): drengr dúði dǫrr í blóði translated as svenden (jeg) rystede sværdene i blod ‘the young man (I) shook the swords in blood’. H and Hr read dúðum dǫrr í blóði drengs ‘we (I) shook the spears in the blood of the warrior’, which seems to be a syntactic simplification.
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.
- 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.
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Goetting, Lauren. 2006. ‘Þegn and drengr in the Viking Age’. SS 78, 375-404.