Note to Hfr Óldr 1^I

[3, 4] kom at heipta blóði ‘came to the blood of strife’: Although heipta occurs in no ms., it could have been the starting point for the existing readings: ‘hamna’ (normalised hafna) in FskBˣ, for which a possible meaning is suggested below; the uninterpretable ‘hæfta’ in FskAˣ; and dat. pl. heiptum ‘strife’ in 310, which makes good sense but leaves blóði ‘blood’ (l. 4) stranded and sits uncomfortably with its preceding þars. (a) The construal adopted here is favoured by Finnur Jónsson in Fsk 1902-3 and in LP: heipt 1; also by Bjarni Einarsson in ÍF 29. (b) In Skj B Finnur takes at with blóði, hence opt kom hrafn at blóði ‘the raven often got blood’, while translating heiptum as med fjendtligt sind ‘with hostile mind’ and taking it with hlóð ‘heaped’ (l. 4) and the clause built around it. However, if the dat. reading heiptum were correct the immediately preceding prep. at would govern it rather than the more distant blóði (cf. Kuhn 1983, 120-2 on proclitic prepositions). (c) Kock (Skald and NN §473) reads hafna ... blóði ‘crews’ blood’.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1983. Das Dróttkvætt. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. Fsk 1902-3 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1902-3. Fagrskinna: Nóregs kononga tal. SUGNL 30. Copenhagen: Møller.
8. ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.