Arn Frag 7III
Diana Whaley (ed.) 2017, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Fragments 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 9.
Sumar ‘summer’
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sumar (noun n.; °-s; sumur/sumar): summer
notes
[1] hvern sumar ‘every summer’: The m. acc. sg. form hvern is established by the aðalhending with erni, and in its turn proves the m. gender of sumar(r). Elsewhere the Old Norse word for ‘summer’ is either clearly n. (CVC, LP, ONP: sumar) or else the context does not show its gender. Arnórr’s is the best evidence for the original m. gender which survives in other Germanic languages, and has been attested in later Icelandic dialect (see Sigfús Blöndal 1920-4: sumar). Thus although Óláfr regarded hvern, and the m. gender it indicates, as a barbarismus, it is likely to be a genuine linguistic variant.
hvern ‘Every’
(not checked:)
2. hverr (pron.): who, whom, each, every
notes
[1] hvern sumar ‘every summer’: The m. acc. sg. form hvern is established by the aðalhending with erni, and in its turn proves the m. gender of sumar(r). Elsewhere the Old Norse word for ‘summer’ is either clearly n. (CVC, LP, ONP: sumar) or else the context does not show its gender. Arnórr’s is the best evidence for the original m. gender which survives in other Germanic languages, and has been attested in later Icelandic dialect (see Sigfús Blöndal 1920-4: sumar). Thus although Óláfr regarded hvern, and the m. gender it indicates, as a barbarismus, it is likely to be a genuine linguistic variant.
frekum ‘to the greedy’
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2. frekr (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): greedy
erni ‘eagle’
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1. ǫrn (noun m.; °arnar, dat. erni; ernir, acc. ǫrnu): eagle
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The line is cited in TGT as an example of barbarismus; the flaw here involves stafaskipti ‘substitution of letters’. It is followed by the explanation that hvern replaces hvert in order to maintain the metre (see Note to l. 1).
Although certainty is impossible, the line is likely to be a remnant of a sentence portraying a warrior feeding the eagle each summer (by making carrion out of his enemies), with dat. sg. frekum erni ‘to the greedy eagle’ as an indirect object. Such a statement could refer to any of Arnórr’s patrons Rǫgnvaldr jarl Brúsason, Magnús góði ‘the Good’, Þorfinnr jarl Sigurðarson or Haraldr Sigurðarson, and could therefore have come from any of his extant dróttkvætt poems, respectively Arn RdrII, Arn MagndrII, Arn ÞorfdrII or Arn HardrII, or conceivably from the putative Blágagladrápa (see Note to Frag 3 [All]). Finnur Jónsson (SnE 1848-87, III, 572-3 and n. 5) tentatively lists the line as st. 8 of Arn HardrII (and prints it in Skj as st. 6 of the same poem), remarking that Snorri Sturluson’s description in Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar (HSigHkr ch. 33, ÍF 28, 112) of Haraldr harrying Denmark hvert sumar eptir annat ‘one summer after another’ could derive from this stanza. That is possible, but far from certain, especially since Snorri cites not from Arnórr at this point but from Stúfr Stúfdr 5/4II, which contains the phrase hvert ár ‘every year’.
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