Ófúsa drók ýsu;
áttak fang við lǫngu;
vannk of hǫfði hennar
hlǫmm; vas þat fyr skǫmmu.
Þó mank hitt, es hrotta
hafðak gulli vafðan;
dúðum dǫrr í blóði,
drengr; vas þat fyr lengra.
Drók ófúsa ýsu; áttak fang við lǫngu; vannk hlǫmm of hǫfði hennar; þat vas fyr skǫmmu. Þó mank hitt, es hafðak gulli vafðan hrotta; dúðum dǫrr í blóði, drengr; þat vas fyr lengra.
I pulled up the reluctant haddock; I wrestled with the ling; I exulted above its head; that was recently. Yet I recall when I owned the gold-wrapped sword; we shook spears in blood, warrior; that was longer ago.
[8] drengr: drengs Flat, H, Hr
[8] drengr (m. nom. sg.) ‘warrior’: Drengr can mean ‘(young) man, (manly) man, warrior, servant’ (see Fritzner: drengr; LP: drengr; SnE 1998, II, 258; Goetting 2006). Because Þorgils is addressing King Haraldr, ‘warrior’ is chosen here. Skj B, which adopts the F variant dúði (3rd pers. sg. pret. indic.) ‘shook’ in l. 7 (so also Skald), has svenden ‘young man’ (i.e. Þorgils): drengr dúði dǫrr í blóði translated as svenden (jeg) rystede sværdene i blod ‘the young man (I) shook the swords in blood’. H and Hr read dúðum dǫrr í blóði drengs ‘we (I) shook the spears in the blood of the warrior’, which seems to be a syntactic simplification.