Poem about Eiríkr blóðøx — Glúmr Eir^III

This couplet (Glúmr Eir) is preserved only in TGT and is attributed there to ‘Glúmr’. It is the sole identifiable remnant of a poem about King Eiríkr blóðøx ‘Blood-axe’ (d. 954; see Ruler Biography, SkP I, cxc), the existence of which is assumed from the naming of Eiríkr in l. 2, from the tradition that Glúmr was a poet in Eiríkr’s service (Skáldatal, SnE 1848-87, III, 253, 261, 273), and from an extended passage in Fagrskinna (ÍF 29, 79). This states that Glúmr in his poem (í sínu kvæði) tells of the raiding expeditions that Eiríkr undertook while his father Haraldr hárfagri ‘Fair-hair’ was still alive: in Sweden and Denmark, the Baltic, Finnmark (where he met his queen Gunnhildr), and Permia (ON Bjarmaland), and then west to England and other parts of the British Isles. From this and the surviving couplet it has been deduced that the poem must predate Eiríkr’s acquisition of sole power in Norway in the early 930s (cf. SnE 1848-87, III, 445). Certainly the present-tense verb fær ‘gains’ (l. 1) points to composition during Eiríkr’s lifetime. A further stanza, Glúmr Gráf 2^I, is printed as part of Eir in Skj, and Gráf 3^I and 6^I depict campaigns that could be associated with Eiríkr, but there is no decisive evidence of a connection with Eiríkr (see Introduction to Glúmr Gráf ^I), and Glúmr’s poetry about Eiríkr seems much less well preserved than his Gráf. The couplet from Eir is composed in dunhent ‘echoing-rhymed’, a variant of dróttkvætt in which the second skothending in the odd line is echoed in the aðalhendingar in the following even line (cf. SnSt Ht 24 and Context; also RvHbreiðm Hl 65-6 and SnE 2007, 80-1). The generalised content, the naming of Eiríkr and perhaps the resounding use of hendingar would support the view that this is the stef ‘refrain’ of the poem (Fidjestøl 1982, 91, 185-6), and therefore that the poem was a drápa. The TGT mss A, W are used below, with A as main ms. A further transcript in 761bˣ(132v) appears to be copied from W and is not used in this edn.

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
3. Fidjestøl, Bjarne. 1982. Det norrøne fyrstediktet. Universitet i Bergen Nordisk institutts skriftserie 11. Øvre Ervik: Alvheim & Eide.
4. ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
5. SkP I = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Ed. Diana Whaley. 2012.
6. SnE 2007 = Snorri Sturluson. 2007. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
8. Margaret Clunies Ross 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Eiríks saga rauða’ 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, pp. 395-399. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=18> (accessed 30 April 2024)
9. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 30 April 2024)
10. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Fagrskinna’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=56> (accessed 30 April 2024)
11. Alison Finlay 2012, ‘ Glúmr Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 245. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1209> (accessed 30 April 2024)
12. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2012, ‘Glúmr Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa 2’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 249.
13. Alison Finlay (ed.) 2012, ‘Glúmr Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa 3’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 251.
14. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill 65’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1073.
15. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 24’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1130.
16. Not published: do not cite ()