Cite as: Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 1 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 16.

The following six stanzas, which may originally have been from an independent poem sometimes referred to as ‘Hildibrandr’s Death-song’, are said to have been recited by Hildibrandr as he lay dying. Poems reviewing their lives are said to have been recited by several fornaldarsaga heroes, like Hjálmarr and Ǫrvar-Oddr, just before they die. These stanzas correspond, though with much elaboration on Saxo’s part, to Saxo 2015, I, vii. 9. 14-15, pp. 506-9.

Mjök er vandgætt, hvé verða skal um borinn öðrum at banaorði. Þik Drótt um bar af Danmörku en mik sjálfan á Svíþjóðu. Mjök er vandgætt, hvé verða skal um borinn öðrum at banaorði. Þik Drótt um bar af Danmörku en mik sjálfan á Svíþjóðu. Mjök er vandgætt, hvé skal verða um borinn öðrum at banaorði. Drótt um bar þik af Danmörku en mik sjálfan á Svíþjóðu.

text prose order   It is very difficult to deal with how one must be born to become the slayer of another. Drótt gave birth to you in Denmark and to me myself in Sweden.

context: After Ásmundr has slain a succession of Hildibrandr’s best warriors, Hildibrandr breaks into a berserk rage, slays his own son, and meets Ásmundr at the River Rhine. Hildibrandr’s sword breaks on his adversary’s helmet and flies into the Rhine. Mortally wounded, he utters a poem of six stanzas.

notes: [3, 5]: In both ll. 3 and 5, the first element of the ms.’s of borinn ‘be born’ and of bar ‘bore’ has been normalised to um, to conform to Old Norse usage of the period after 1250. The untranslatable pleonastic particle of occurs most commonly in early poetic texts, and its presence here suggests a lengthy transmission history for this stanza. — [5-6]: These lines are similar to Saxo 2015, I, vii. 9. 14, ll. 9-11, pp. 506-8: ‘Danica te tellus, me Sueticus edidit orbis, | Drot tibi maternum quondam distenderat uber: Hac genitrice tibi pariter collacteus exto’ ‘Danish territory bore you, | Sweden me. Once Drot extended a mother’s | breast to you; I too sucked milk from her teat.’

texts: Ásm 1›

editions: Skj Anonyme digte og vers [XIII]: E. 12. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ásmundar saga kappabana I 1 (AII, 320; BII, 340); Skald II, 183, FF §31, NN §2994C; Peringskiöld 1722, 21 (ch. 9), FSN 2, 484-5 (ch. 9), Detter 1891, 98, FSGJ 1, 405 (ch. 9) (Ásm); CPB I, 190, Halvorsen 1951, 11; Edd. Min. 53, NK 313.

sources

Holm perg 7 4° (7)

43r - 43r

(Ásm)