Þjsk Jarl 1^I

Þoku dregr upp it ýtra;
él festisk it vestra
(mǫkkr mun náms) af nøkkvi
(naðrbings kominn hingat).

Þoku dregr upp it ýtra; él festisk it vestra af nøkkvi; mǫkkr náms {naðrbings} mun kominn hingat.

Fog rises up on the outer side; a storm gathers in the west for some reason; the cloud from the taking {of the adder-bed} [GOLD] must have come this way.

Mss: Flat(28rb) (Flat); 4867ˣ(101v), 563aˣ(5) (ÞorlJ)

Readings: [2] él: ei 4867ˣ, 563aˣ    [3] mǫkkr (‘mokkr’): ‘nockur’ 4867ˣ, 563aˣ;    af: ‘a[...]’ 4867ˣ    [4] naðr‑: niðr 4867ˣ, 563aˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 142, Skj BI, 133, Skald I, 73, NN §§318, 2443A; SHI 3, 101-2, Flat 1860-8, I, 212, ÞorlJ 1883, 125, 158, ÍF 9, 223, ÍS III, 2271 (ÞorlJ).

Context: Þorleifr travels to Hákon jarl’s court disguised as a beggar, in order to perform a composition called Konuvísur ‘Vísur about a woman’ (‘konur visur’, Flat(27vb)), but see Noreen 1922a, 45; Almqvist 1965-74, I, 194-5). In these, Hákon is spoken of as a woman in poetic terms (kona kenndr í skáldskap), as revenge for Hákon’s attack on his ship (see Biography above). At first Hákon hears praise of himself and his son Eiríkr jarl (see Introduction to Þjsk Hák), but he is soon assailed by unbearable itching between his thighs. He commands Þorleifr to recite something better, but when Þorleifr starts the Þokuvísur ‘Fog Vísur’, said to be the middle part of the poem, darkness falls. The third and last part of the poem causes weapons to fight by themselves and Hákon to fall unconscious. He awakes to find Þorleifr magically escaped and his own beard and half his hair rotted away, never to return. 

Notes: [1] þoku dregr upp it ýtra ‘fog rises up on the outer side’: This line lacks skothending. Emendation of ýtra ‘outer, outer side’ to eystra ‘east’ (Skj B; Skald) gives end-rhyme with vestra ‘west’ in l. 2, as well as syntactic and semantic parallelism. These features enhance the stanza’s incantatory quality (cf. for example the runic metrical charms in Liestøl 1963, 38-41), but it makes sense as it stands so has not been emended here; see also Note to Þjsk Hákdr 1/1. — [3, 4] mǫkkr náms naðrbings ‘the cloud from the taking of the adder-bed [GOLD]’: That is, presumably, the smoke and soot from Þorleifr’s burned ship. Nám m. ‘seizure, taking’ occurs nowhere else as a simplex (though cf. landnám ‘land-taking, settlement’) and mǫkkr m. ‘cloud’ appears otherwise only in a C13th stanza (Guðbr Frag 2/1^III) and in the name Mǫkkurkálfi, given to a giant animated figure made of clay (SnE 1998, I, 21-2). Although the gen. case of náms is unexpected, the sense of the phrase is clear enough. — [3] af nøkkvi ‘for some reason’: Kock (NN §318) thinks this adverbial phrase qualifies the final clause, in accordance with its position in the stanza, but the Text above, with Skj B, sees af nøkkvi as implying a question (what caused the fog and storm?) to which mǫkkr náms naðrbings is the answer (Skj B takes it with l. 1 rather than l. 2, as here).

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. 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.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. ÍF 9 = Eyfirðinga sǫgur. Ed. Jónas Kristjánsson. 1956.
8. Noreen, Erik. 1922a. Studier i fornvästnordisk diktning: Andra samlingen. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 4. Uppsala: Akademiska bokhandeln.
9. SHI = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1828-46. Scripta historica islandorum de rebus gestis veterum borealium, latine reddita et apparatu critico instructa, curante Societate regia antiquariorum septentrionalium. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp etc. and London: John & Arthur Arch.
10. ÍS = Bragi Halldórsson et al., eds. 1987. Íslendinga sögur og þættir. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu.
11. Almqvist, Bo. 1965-74. Norrön niddiktning: Traditionshistoriska studier i versmagi. I: Nid mot furstar. II: Nid mot missionärer: Senmedeltid nidtraditioner. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
12. ÞorlJ 1883 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1883. ‘Þáttr Þorleifs’. In Guðmundur Þorláksson et al. 1880-3, III, 117-63.
13. Liestøl, Aslak. 1963. ‘Runer frå Bryggen’. Viking: Tidsskrift for norrøn arkeologi 27, 5-53.
14. Internal references
15. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds’ 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=50> (accessed 20 April 2024)
16. Kate Heslop 2012, ‘ Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson, Poem about Hákon’ 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. 369. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1447> (accessed 20 April 2024)
17. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Guðbrandr í Svǫlum, Fragment 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 198.
18. Not published: do not cite ()