Sigv Austv 2I/2 — hvarf ‘turning’
Létk til Eiðs, þvít óðumk
aptrhvarf, dreginn karfa
(vér stiltum svá) valtan
vátr (til glœps á báti).
Taki hlœgiskip hauga
herr; sákat far verra;
létk til húms á hrúti
hætt; fór betr an vættak.
Vátr létk valtan karfa dreginn til Eiðs, þvít óðumk aptrhvarf; vér stiltum svá til glœps á báti. Herr hauga taki hlœgiskip; sákat verra far; létk hætt til á hrúti húms; fór betr an vættak.
Wet, I had the unsteady vessel dragged to Eið, because I dreaded turning back; we had managed so badly in the boat. May the host of burial mounds [TROLLS] take the laughable ship; I never saw a worse craft; I courted danger on the ram of the sea [SHIP]; it went better than I had expected.
readings
[2] ‑hvarf: ‘huerf’ or ‘huorf’ R686ˣ, ‑hvarfs Kˣ
notes
[2] aptrhvarf ‘turning back’: Ternström (1871, 42-3) takes the word to refer to the return journey, after they have reached their destination, but this requires less probable word order, with þvít ‘because’ in l. 1 introducing not the clause headed by óðumk ‘I dreaded’ but the intercalary clause. Sahlgren (1927-8, I, 185) also assumes this meaning for aptrhvarf, but he surmises, contradicting Snorri’s account, that the party alternately dragged and rowed the boat across Norway to Eda in Värmland and left it there (see also Noreen 1922a, 74, and cf. Beckman 1923, 323-4; Beckman 1934, 207-8). Thus he is able to construe þvít with óðumk, taking the sense of the passage to be that Sigvatr dreaded the prospect of a return journey without a boat. This explains admirably the logical connection between the clauses beginning with Létk and þvít, but it obscures the logical ties between these clauses and the rest of the stanza.