EirRagn Lv 2^VIII (Ragn 12)

Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 12 (Eiríkr Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 649.

text and translation

notes and context

Eiríkr speaks proudly of the heroic nature of his imminent death on a bed of spears, and foresees the exposure of his own body and that of his dead brother to ravens eager for prey.

[4]: This line is unmetrical with the ms. spelling dögurðar (‘daugurdar’); it has therefore been normalised here to the alternative form dagverðar. — [5-8]: There have been a number of editorial attempts to make sense of the first word of l. 7, ms. ‘hridr’, and the construal of the other lines in this helmingr have largely depended on them. An explanation of the present ed.’s position is at point (d) below. (a) Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 203-4) emends as follows: Mun blóðþiðurr bráðir | ok brátt yfir gjalla | brœðra beggja slíta | blár, þótt illa launi (with launi for ms. leyni): ‘The (dark-)blue blood-capercaillie (i.e. raven) will tear the bodies (bráðir) of both brothers and soon shriek over (them), even though he (the raven) (thus) pays a poor reward’ (i.e. for the prey which the brothers had provided for him with their battle-slayings, cf. Ragn 14/7-8, below, and Ragn 1906-8, 205). In support of his emendation to blóðþiðurr ‘blood-capercaillie’, evidently suggested to him by Bugge through personal communication, Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 204) adduces blóðorri ‘blood-grouse’ and blóðtrani ‘blood-crane’, both recorded elsewhere as kennings for ‘raven’ (see, respectively, ÞjóðA Sex 29/1^II and Ótt Knútdr 10/3^I). As an alternative presentation of the half-stanza as he reads it, Olsen suggests the reversal of bráðir and brœðra in its word order (with retention of blóðþiðurr in l. 5 and no change in the overall meaning), and considers only to reject as mindre rimeligt ‘less reasonable’ the possibility of retaining the 1824b reading Mun blóði þá in the sense ‘the blood-brother (of the raven mentioned in the first half-stanza) will then …’ (with blóði ‘blood-brother’ taken as a weak m. noun in the nom. case). (b) Kock (Skald; NN §1454) retains the latter reading in this sense, but is otherwise in agreement with Olsen in treating yfir ‘thereover, over (them)’ in l. 6 as adverbial, in taking blár ‘(dark-)blue, black’, as an adj. used attributively (in this case with blóði), and in emending to launi ‘pays a reward’ in l. 8. (c) Except on this last point, Kock is here arguing against Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), who, as well as emending to launi in l. 8, also retains in l. 5 the 1824b reading Mun blóði þá but takes blóði ‘blood’ as dat. sg., governed by yfir functioning in l. 6 as a prep., and the adj. blár in l. 8 as substantival. Finnur’s translation is thus: da vil den sorte (ravnen) rive i bægge brødrene som bytte og gjalde hurtig over deres blod, skönt det er dårlig gengæld ‘the black one (the raven) will then tear at the prey consisting of both brothers and will soon clamour over their blood, even though that is a poor return’. (d) The present ed. proposes emendation of ms. ‘brat’ in l. 6 to bráð, dat. sg. of bráð ‘meat, raw flesh’, in l. 6 (here following Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891)), and, noting with Finnur Jónsson (Skj A II, 235 n. 2) that paper copies of 1824b read beggja rather than veggja in l. 7, assumes alliteration on <b> for this line and for line 8 (where blár occurs in head-stave position), and emends ms. ‘hridr’ in l. 7 to bræðra (following in this respect most other eds), and also emending veggja to beggja, thus producing the translation given above. Ms. leyni ‘conceals’ (3rd pers. sg. pres. subj.) is not emended to launi ‘pays a reward’ in l. 8 in this edn, as in several others. The word yfir ‘above’ in l. 6 is here taken as prepositional (cf. also Finnur Jónsson, Skj B, noted above) and as governing bráð f. in the dat. sg. Another possibility, rather less likely because of its syntactic awkwardness, but which would avoid emendation of ms. ‘brat’ in l. 6, might be to normalise this to brátt adv. ‘soon’, and to read: Þá mun blár slíta blóði bróður, beggja bræðra, ok brátt gjalla yfir ‘Then the black one [the raven] will consume the blood of [my] brother, [indeed] of both brothers, and soon scream above [it]’, with yfir ‘thereover’ here taken as prepositional with a suppressed object. For an alternative treatment of this half-stanza, avoiding emendation altogether, see McTurk (2014b).

readings

• [6] bráð: ‘brat’ 1824b
• [7] bræðra beggja: ‘hridr veggia’ 1824b

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

• NKS 1824 b 4° (1824b) — 64r/11 - 64r/13

  Munat eins konungs efni,
  svá at ek vita dæmi,
  á dýrra beð deyja
  til dagverðar hrafni.
  Mun blóði þá bróður
  ok †brat† yfir gjalla
  †hridr veggia† slíta
  blár, þó at illa leyni.

  Mvnað eíns konungs efní. sva at ek víta dęmí a. dyʀa bed deyía. | til daugurdar hrafne. mvn blodí þa brodur. ok brat yfir gialla. | hridr veggía slíta. blar þo at illa leyní.

  (RM)

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