Angantýr Lv 1^VIII (Heiðr 29)

Hervör, dóttir,         hví kallar svá?
Full feiknstafa         ferr þú þér at illu.
Ær ertu orðin         ok örvita;
villhyggjandi,         vekr dauða menn.

Hervör, dóttir, hví kallar svá? Full feiknstafa ferr þú illu at þér. Ertu orðin ær ok örvita; villhyggjandi, vekr dauða menn.

Hervǫr, daughter, why do you call thus? Full of curses, you carry on to your detriment. You have become mad and unhinged; reasoning astray, you wake dead men.

Mss: Hb(74r), 2845(65r), R715ˣ(13v) (Heiðr)

Readings: [2] hví: hvat 2845    [4] þér: om. R715ˣ    [5] Ær: óð corrected from ‘or’ in the hand of JR R715ˣ    [8] vekr: vekr upp 2845, vekja R715ˣ;    dauða menn: so 2845, R715ˣ, menn dauða Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 246, Skj BII, 266, Skald II, 138; Heiðr 1672, 92, FSN 1, 436, 520, Heiðr 1873, 215-16, 317, Heiðr 1924, 24, 108-9, FSGJ 2, 16-17, Heiðr 1960, 15; Edd. Min. 16.

Context: A prose interjection in R715ˣ reads (Heiðr 1924, 108): I þui bili opnudust haugarnir, og var allt at sia sem logi eirn, ok þa var þetta kuedid i haugi Anganntyrs ‘At that moment the mounds opened, and everything was like a single flame to look at, and then this was said in Angantýr’s mound’.

Notes: [All]: The draugr or animate, corporeal ghost of a deceased person, in particular the inhabitant of a burial mound (LP; Fritzner; CVC; cf. haugbúi ‘mound-dweller’) is a common figure in Old Norse literature. The revenant may remain inside the mysteriously-opened mound (see Heiðr 22/6), as Angantýr does here, or break out to interact with (often haunt) the living (see Chadwick 1946 for comprehensive examples and discussion). The recitation of verse is a characteristic commonly associated with draugar (ibid., 61-5 and 106-18); for a situation similar to the present one, see Nj ch. 78, in which the mound of Gunnarr Hámundarson opens and he is heard to recite poetry (GunnHám Lv 14^V (Nj 29)), although in that instance there is no-one involved in dialogue with him. SnSt Ht 30^III exemplifies a metre called there draughent, though it is not clear whether this means ‘ghost-rhymed’ or ‘trunk-rhymed’ (see Note to [All] there). — [All]: A prose context similar to that given at this point in R715ˣ occurs slightly later in the exchange in the other mss, before Angantýr Lv 3 (Heiðr 32). That stanza does not appear in R715ˣ, however. — [4] feiknstafa ‘of curses’: Lit. ‘of portentous or terrible staves’, probably runes (cf. Anon Sól 60/6^VII, Grí 12/6 and LT 57), taken here with the sense ‘something which causes evil’, and according with Hervǫr’s curse of the previous stanza. Cf. OE fācenstæf (pl. fācenstafas, Beowulf l. 1017) ‘works of evil, acts of malice, treachery’ (DOE). Some eds construe this line with the previous two, rather than with l. 4, as here, but in this stanza and elsewhere in the poem Angantýr seems to be more concerned with the broader fact that Hervǫr is there at all rather than the specific content of her speech. — [5-6] ær ok örvita ‘mad and unhinged’: This pairing also occurs in the eddic poems Lok 21/1-2, Oddrgr 11/1-2 and HHund II 34/1-2. — [7] villhyggjandi ‘reasoning astray’: A hap. leg. Most other eds also treat as a cpd.

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
6. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
7. LT = La Farge, Beatrice and John Tucker. 1992. Glossary to the Poetic Edda, based on Hans Kuhn’s Kurzes Wörterbuch. Skandinavistische Arbeiten 15. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. Heiðr 1672 = Verelius, Olaus, ed. 1672. Hervarar Saga på Gammel Gotska. Uppsala: Curio.
9. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
10. Heiðr 1924 = Jón Helgason, ed. 1924. Heiðreks saga. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs. SUGNL 48. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
11. Heiðr 1960 = Tolkien, Christopher, ed. and trans. 1960. Saga Heiðreks konungs ins vitra / The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise. Nelson Icelandic Texts. London etc.: Nelson.
12. Heiðr 1873 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1873. Hervarar saga ok Heidreks. Det Norske oldskriftselskabs samlinger 17. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger.
13. DOE = Cameron, Angus, Ashley Crandell Amos and Antonette diPaolo Healey, eds. 2007-. Dictionary of Old English. Toronto: University of Toronto. <http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/>
14. Chadwick, Nora (Kershaw). 1946. ‘Norse Ghosts (A Study in the Draugr and the Haugbúi)’. Folklore 57, 50-65; 106-27.
15. Internal references
16. 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Njáls saga’ 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. 1220-1313. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=55> (accessed 12 May 2024)
17. Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 79 (Gestumblindi, Heiðreks gátur 32)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 446.
18. Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 69 (Gestumblindi, Heiðreks gátur 22)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 435.
19. Not published: do not cite (GunnHám^V)
20. Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Sólarljóð 60’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 338-9.
21. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 29 (Gunnarr Hámundarson, Lausavísur 14)’ 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, p. 1256.
22. Not published: do not cite ()
23. Not published: do not cite ()
24. Not published: do not cite ()
25. Not published: do not cite ()
26. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 30’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1136.
27. Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 32 (Angantýr Arngrímsson, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 393.
28. Not published: do not cite ()