Sigv Austv 10^I

Snjalls létum skip skolla
skjǫldungs við ey tjǫlduð
fyr ágætu úti
ǫndvert sumar landi.
Enn í haust, es hestar
hagþorns á mó sporna
(ték ýmissar) Ekkils,
(íðir) hlýtk at ríða.

Létum skip snjalls skjǫldungs skolla tjǫlduð ǫndvert sumar úti við ey fyr ágætu landi. Enn hlýtk at ríða í haust, es {hestar Ekkils} sporna á {mó hagþorns}; ték ýmissar íðir.

We let the ship of the valiant monarch [Óláfr] skulk with its awnings up at the beginning of summer out by an island opposite some excellent country. But it is my lot to ride in autumn, when {the horses of Ekkill <sea-king>} [SHIPS] tread on {the hawthorn’s moor} [LAND]; I report various doings.

Mss: Holm2(17v), 325V(22vb), R686ˣ(35v), 972ˣ(122va-123va), 325VI(15vb), 75a(8ra), 73aˣ(46v), 78aˣ(45v), 68(16v), 61(88va), Holm4(9ra), 75c(9v), 325VII(8v), Flat(85va), Tóm(106v) (ÓH); Kˣ(272r), Bb(143va) (Hkr)

Readings: [1] Snjalls: snjallr 325VI, 73aˣ, 78aˣ, 325VII, Flat, ‘Snalldz’ 75c;    létum: lét um 73aˣ, 78aˣ, Flat;    skip: skíð 68    [2] ‑ungs: ‑ungr 75c;    tjǫlduð: ‘tilld vt’ 325V, tjaldað 325VI, 75a, 73aˣ, 78aˣ    [3] ágætu: ágætum 61;    úti: ‘u[…]’ 78aˣ    [4] ǫndvert: ‘o᷎ndítt’ 73aˣ    [5] es (‘er’): þá er 61, þar er Kˣ;    hestar: hæstar 325VII    [6] hag‑: haf‑ 68, 61, 75c, Flat, Tóm;    ‑þorns: þorn 73aˣ, ‘‑þors’ Tóm;    á mó: ‘amo’ R686ˣ, Holm4, 75c, Flat, ‘aíno’ Bb;    sporna: spornat 78aˣ    [7] ték (‘te ec’): tæ ek 325V, 325VI, 75a, 78aˣ, 68, 325VII, fekk 61, tek ek Holm4, Flat, Kˣ, ræð ek Tóm;    ýmissar: ýmsum 972ˣ;    Ekkils: so Kˣ, ekkjum Holm2, 68, ekkjur 325V, R686ˣ, 325VI, 75a, 73aˣ, 78aˣ, 61, Holm4, 75c, Flat, Tóm, ‘ækiur’ 325VII, eikjum Bb    [8] íðir: ‘iþ(r)r’(?) R686ˣ, ‘iðil’ 325VI, 75a, 78aˣ, iðnir 73aˣ, 68, 75c, 325VII, Flat, Tóm, iðit 61;    hlýtk: hlýt 325V, Flat, ‘hlytt’ R686ˣ, ‘hlite’ 972ˣ, ‘hlyck’ 325VI, ‘hlyt’ 75a, hlýsk 78aˣ, hlýt with a letter above t 68, hlautk Holm4, Kˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 236, Skj BI, 222-3, Skald I, 116, NN §628; Fms 4, 136, Fms 12, 82, ÓH 1941, I, 135 (ch. 53), Flat 1860-8, II, 58; Hkr 1777-1826, II, 82, VI, 81, Hkr 1868, 274 (ÓHHkr ch. 70), Hkr 1893-1901, II, 113, ÍF 27, 93, Hkr 1991, I, 315 (ÓHHkr ch. 71); Ternström 1871, 8-11, 40, Jón Skaptason 1983, 91, 241.

Context: As for st. 9.

Notes: [6] á mó hagþorns ‘on the hawthorn’s moor [LAND]’: The point is that ships are drawn up onto land at the onset of winter – and so is the poet as he rides reluctantly on his mission. (a) The phrase adequately conveys the sense ‘dry land’. As a kenning it is not very convincing, but the alternatives are arguably not more so. (b) Kock (NN §628) interprets gen. hagþorns adjectivally to mean ‘overgrown with hawthorns’, so that mó hagþorns is not a kenning (so also ÍF 27). (c) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B, but cf. LP: hagþorn) construes hagþorns with hestar Ekkils ‘the horses of Ekkill <sea-king> [SHIPS]’ in l. 5; but it is superfluous in that kenning, and there is no apparent reason to associate hawthorns with ships. (d) Meissner 88 suggests emending mó to mar ‘sea’, producing an eccentric kenning but one that would have logic as the inverse of the pattern láð þangs ‘land of sea-weed [SEA]’. The range of the hawthorn in Norway and Sweden has played a role in attempts to identify Sigvatr’s route for the journey and the season of his departure: see Beckman (1923, 331); Beckman (1934, 213); Edqvist (1943, 70-1). — [7, 8] ték ýmissar íðir ‘I report various doings’: As Finnur Jónsson (1932, 9) observes, the point is simply to contrast the different kinds of ‘riding’ in the two helmingar. For ték ‘I report’, Noreen (1923, 38) would read tekk ‘I take’ with Kˣ and Holm4, on questionable stemmatic grounds, and regardless of sense. — [7] Ekkils ‘of Ekkill <sea-king>’: (a) Though unique to Kˣ, Ekkils is surely correct, being the lectio difficilior. (b) Some eds adopt the reading ekkjum of some mss, with the poetic meaning ‘women’ (lit. ‘widows’) and place it in the intercalary clause, with the result that it is horses rather than ships that tread the land in autumn (Ternström 1871; ÍF 27; Jón Skaptason 1983, 91). — [8] hlýtk ‘it is my lot’: The reading hlautk ‘it was my lot’ of Kˣ and Holm4, as recommended by Noreen (1923, 38), is adopted in some eds (ÍF 27; Hkr 1991), but it seems likelier that the poet is contrasting past contentment with present discontent, and at all events he treats his riding as taking place in the present moment in the following stanza, with its pres.-tense verbs. It is easier to explain why hlýtk should have been altered to hlautk by a copyist, to agree with pret. létum ‘we let’ in l. 1, than the reverse.

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. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
7. 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.
8. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
9. ÓH 1941 = Johnsen, Oscar Albert and Jón Helgason, eds. 1941. Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga: Den store saga om Olav den hellige efter pergamenthåndskrift i Kungliga biblioteket i Stockholm nr. 2 4^to med varianter fra andre håndskrifter. 2 vols. Det norske historiske kildeskriftfond skrifter 53. Oslo: Dybwad.
10. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
11. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
12. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
13. Jón Skaptason. 1983. ‘Material for an Edition and Translation of the Poems of Sigvat Þórðarson, skáld’. Ph.D. thesis. State University of New York at Stony Brook. DAI 44: 3681A.
14. Beckman, Nat. 1923. ‘Til Sigvats Austrfararvísur’. ANF 39, 321-32.
15. Beckman, Nat. 1934. ‘Ytterligare om Sigvats Austrfararvísur’. ANF 50, 197-217.
16. Edqvist, Torgny. 1943. ‘De geografiska problemen i Sigvat Tordssons Austrfararvísur’. NoB 31, 62-71.
17. Finnur Jónsson. 1932. Austrfararvísur. Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II. Hist.-filos. kl.1931, 1. Oslo: Dybwad.
18. Ternström, Alfred. 1871. Om skalden Sighvat Thordsson och tolkning af hans Austrfararvísur, Vestrfararvísur och Knútsdrápa. Lund: Ohlsson.
19. Hkr 1777-1826 = Schöning, Gerhard et al., eds. 1777-1826. Heimskringla edr Noregs konunga-sögor. 6 vols. Copenhagen: Stein.
20. Hkr 1868 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1868. Heimskringla eller Norges kongesagaer af Snorre Sturlassøn. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger & Christie.
21. Noreen, Erik. 1923. Studier i fornvästnordisk diktning: tredje samlingen. Uppsala: Akademiska bokhandeln.
22. Internal references
23. (forthcoming), ‘ Heimskringla, Óláfs saga helga (in Heimskringla)’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=152> (accessed 28 April 2024)