Arn Rǫgndr 2^II

Réð Heita konr hleyti
herþarfr við mik gerva;
styrk lét oss of orkat
jarls mægð af því frægðar.

{Herþarfr konr Heita} réð gerva hleyti við mik; styrk mægð jarls lét of orkat oss frægðar af því.

{The army-beneficent descendant of Heiti} [= Rǫgnvaldr] made [lit. did make] a marriage-alliance with me; the strong kinship by marriage with the jarl brought us [me] renown because of that.

Mss: R(36v), Tˣ(38r), W(82), U(35v) (SnE)

Readings: [1] hleyti: so U, hljóti R, ‘hlo᷎ti’ Tˣ, ‘hlætí’ W    [2] ‑þarfr: so all others, ‑þarf R    [3] styrk: stórr U;    oss: ǫll W    [4] mægð (‘megð’): ‘meg’ U;    af: at U

Editions: Skj AI, 332, Skj BI, 306, Skald I, 155; SnE 1848-87, I, 462-3, II, 338, SnE 1931, 164, SnE 1998, I, 82; Whaley 1998, 140-1.

Context: The helmingr belongs to a group of quotations which exemplify periphrastic terms for kings and jarls, in this case konr Heita ‘Heiti’s descendant’.

Notes: [All]: The st. is explicitly attributed in SnE to Arnórr and Rǫgnvaldsdrápa. — [1] konr Heita ‘descendant of Heiti [= Rǫgnvaldr]’: Heiti occurs in kennings and in Þul Sækonunga l. 3^III as the name of a legendary sea-king; but may here refer to the great-great-great-grandfather of Rǫgnvaldr Mœrajarl, first jarl of Orkney, named in Orkn ch. 3. — [1] hleyti ‘a marriage-alliance’: So U. This variant is synonymous with mægð ‘kinship by marriage’ in l. 4, and gives perfect sense. The R reading hljóti, 3rd pers. sg./pl. pres. subj. of the verb hljóta ‘get, be allotted’, could make no sense in the context. — [2] herþarfr (m. nom. sg.) ‘army-beneficent’: Or ‘needful, useful to hosts’. This form is required with konr Heita ‘descendant of Heiti’ (l. 1); the R reading herþarf is ungrammatical.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Whaley, Diana, ed. and trans. 1998. The Poetry of Arnórr jarlaskáld: An Edition and Study. Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies 8. Turnhout: Brepols.
4. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
5. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
6. Internal references
7. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
8. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Sækonunga heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 677. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3183> (accessed 5 May 2024)
9. Not published: do not cite ()