Vér kaupskipi kómum heilu
at, þar er Bjarmar byggðir áttu.
Eyddum eldi ættir þeira;
unnum löskvan láðmann tekinn.
Vér kómum kaupskipi heilu at, þar er Bjarmar áttu byggðir. Eyddum ættir þeira eldi; unnum löskvan láðmann tekinn.
We brought our trading ship unharmed to where the Permians had their settlements. We destroyed their families with fire; we managed to capture a lazy guide.
[7] löskvan: röskvan 173ˣ
[7-8] unnum löskvan láðmann tekinn ‘we managed to capture a lazy guide’: According to the saga prose (Ǫrv 1888, 28-31), Oddr realises that a serving man (byrli) among the Permians can speak Norse, so he captures the man and takes him to his ship. The man later acts as a guide and tells the raiding party the whereabouts of a mound full of silver. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) gives the word laðmann with a short <a>, but under LP: láðmaðr suggests that the word is probably the same as the láðmaðr ‘guide’ of Mark Eirdr 24/6II, the only other attested use in skaldic verse. Cf. NN §2603. The noun is generally considered a loan from OE lādmann ‘pilot, guide’, which has a long vowel in the first syllable.