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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sigv Lv 26I/4 — sem ‘as’

Alfífu mun ævi
ungr drengr muna lengi,
es oxamat ôtum
inni, skaf sem hafrar.
Annat vas, þás Ôleifr
ógnbandaðr réð landi;
hverr átti þá hrósa
hjalmþornuðu korni.

Ungr drengr mun lengi muna ævi Alfífu, es ôtum oxamat inni, sem hafrar skaf. Vas annat, þás Ôleifr, ógnbandaðr, réð landi; hverr átti þá hrósa hjalmþornuðu korni.

A young fellow will long remember the days of Álfífa (Ælfgifu), when we ate cattle fodder indoors, as goats [eat] peeled bark. It was otherwise when Óláfr, the battle-gesturer [WARRIOR], ruled the country; everyone then had to praise the rick-dried grain.

readings

[4] sem hafrar: ‘sem hafarar’ Flat, hafta Tóm

notes

[4] sem hafrar skaf ‘as goats [eat] peeled bark’: Bark was used as fodder for goats and cattle. Kock (NN §1877) objects to this interpretation, saying that the meaning is instead that ‘we had to content ourselves with fodder’. He also objects that inni ‘indoors’ is meaningless in the present arrangement, and he would instead form a cpd inniskaf (see Readings; so already Fms), referring to bark dried and brought in (i.e. brought home). But inni sufficiently conveys the meaning not that the people ate like cattle (outdoors) but that they had only fodder to put on their tables indoors. Such is the interpretation of Olsen (1945b, 189), who rejects the supposition that farmers ate bark.

grammar

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