Cite as: Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 48 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Lausavísur 15)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 861.
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Sigurðr, vartu eigi
í Svíaskerjum,
þá er Hálfdani
heiptir guldum.
Urðu randir
rógmiklaðar
sverðum skornar,
en hann sjálfr drepinn.
Sigurðr, vartu eigi
í Svíaskerjum,
þá er Hálfdani
heiptir guldum.
Urðu randir
rógmiklaðar
sverðum skornar,
en hann sjálfr drepinn.
Sigurðr, vartu eigi í Svíaskerjum, þá er guldum Hálfdani heiptir. Randir rógmiklaðar urðu skornar sverðum, en hann sjálfr drepinn.
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text
prose order
Sigurðr, you were not in the skerries of the Swedes, when we repaid Hálfdan for hostilities. The shields {of the strife-increaser} [WARRIOR] were cut through with swords, and he himself was killed. |
context: As for Ǫrv 47.
notes: The events alluded to in this stanza occur in an early part of the saga (Ǫrv 1888, 50-7; Ǫrv 1892, 27-9), shortly after Oddr’s return to Hrafnista from his adventures in Permia and Risaland (Giantland). He decides to go on a viking adventure and gets his father, Grímr loðinkinni ‘Hairy-cheek’, to equip three ships for him. He then provokes a fight with a viking called Hálfdan, the commander of thirty ships, who uses the skerries in the mouth of the Götaälv (Elfarsker) as his base. Oddr and Ásmundr take Hálfdan by means of a surprise attack and kill him. There is a major discrepancy between this stanza and the prose text; in the prose, Hálfdan’s base is in the Götaälv skerries, while in the stanza it is in the skerries around the Stockholm archipelago (Svíasker). A location on the west coast of Sweden would be more logical from the perspective of an expedition mounted from Norway. — [3-4]: These lines are also
discrepant with the prose text, which represents Oddr’s attack on Hálfdan as a
completely unprovoked act of viking bravado.
texts: ‹Ǫrv 48›
editions: Skj Anonyme digte og vers [XIII]: E. 10. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Ǫrvar-Oddssaga VII 15 (AII, 300; BII, 320); Skald II, 170, FF §38; Ǫrv 1888, 163, Ǫrv 1892, 82, FSGJ 2, 316-17; Edd. Min. 68-9.
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