Anon Krm 3VIII/4 — ruðum ‘we reddened’
Hjuggu vér með hjörvi.
Hátt bárum þá geira,
er tvítugir tölðumz
ok tjör ruðum víða.
Unnum átta jarla
austr fyr Dínu mynni;
gera fengum þá gnóga
gisting at því vígi.
Sveiti fell í sollinn
sæ; týndi lið ævi.
Hjuggu vér með hjörvi. Bárum geira hátt, þá er tölðumz tvítugir ok ruðum tjör víða. Unnum átta jarla austr fyr mynni Dínu; þá fengum gera gnóga gisting at því vígi. Sveiti fell í sollinn sæ; lið týndi ævi.
We hewed with the sword. We bore spears aloft when we reached twenty years of age, and we reddened the sword far and wide. We vanquished eight jarls out east off the mouth of the Dvina; then we gave the greedy one <wolf> ample sustenance in that battle. Blood fell into a troubled sea; troops lost their lives.
notes
[4] ruðum tjör ‘we reddened the sword’: The present ed. emends the mss’ ‘tír’ (variants ‘tyr’, ‘tÿr’) to tjör, taking this as acc. sg. of tjörr m. ‘sword’ (so Falk 1925c, 126; Heggstad et al. 2008: tjǫrr m.; and most eds) rather than as tjör f. ‘spear’ (as suggested in LP: 2. tjǫr). Whether m. acc. sg. tjör ‘the sword’ is here to be understood as having pl. (collective) or sg. reference depends on whether ruðum ‘we reddened’ is taken as referring to the speaker and his companions, or solely to the speaker. Rafn (1826) avoided emendation by assuming an acc. sg. form Týr of the god-name Týr, thought of as spelt Týrr m. nom., but this does not make sense in context. There is little evidence for Rafn’s further suggestion that the name is here a poetic word for ‘sword’.