Cite as: Kate Heslop (ed.) 2012, ‘Anonymous Poems, Óláfs drápa Tryggvasonar 22’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1053.

Skaut á grœnt með grjóti grár ægir ná sôrum (lôgu liðsmenn bjúgir) land (sem brúk of strandir).

En fjaðrdøkkum flokkum flugu hrafns at þat nafnar; skygnum skœðasǫgnum skógs fang gerðisk þangat.

Grár ægir skaut sôrum ná með grjóti á grœnt land; liðsmenn lôgu bjúgir sem brúk of strandir. En {nafnar hrafns} flugu at þat fjaðrdøkkum flokkum; fang gerðisk þangat {skygnum skœðasǫgnum skógs}.

The grey ocean cast a wounded corpse up with gravel on the green land; household troops lay twisted like heaps of seaweed across the beaches. And {the namesakes of the raven} [RAVENS] flew after that in feather-dark flocks; prey was produced there {for the sharp-sighted harm-crew of the forest} [WOLVES].

Mss: Bb(113ra)

Readings: [5] ‑døkkum: ‘deckvm’ Bb    [7] skœða‑: ‘skeda’ Bb    [8] fang: hang Bb;    gerðisk: ‘(gi)ar’(?) Bb

Editions: Skj: [Anonyme digte og vers XII], [1]. Óláfs drápa Tryggvasonar 22: AI, 577, BI, 573, Skald I, 277, NN §§2522, 2548; Munch and Unger 1847, 123, 141, Gullberg 1875, 18, 39.

Notes: [1-4]: Bodies floating ashore after a sea-battle is a conventional skaldic topos; further examples are collected in NN §2522. — [6] at þat ‘after that’: Previous eds make the minor emendation to at þar ‘there, to that place’, presumably to complement flugu ‘flew’, but the construction is questionable, whereas temporal at þat ‘at that, after that’ is well attested (LP: 1. at B). — [8] fang ‘prey’: Finnur Jónsson’s emendation (Skj B). The line has only five syllables in the ms., and other eds emend to various forms of hangi m. ‘hanged man’. Kock (NN §2548) argues this is an Óðinn-name, Hangi ‘hanged one’, and the base-word of a man-kenning, while Gullberg (1875) emends the second and third words in this line to már hanga ‘gull of the hanged man [RAVEN]’. But the new ms. reading ‘giar’ (see following Note) suggests the third word in l. 8 begins with <g>. — [8] gerðisk ‘made’: A broken stroke under the initial letter in the ms. is probably the bottom stroke of a <g>, though now damaged and hard to read, rather than an inversion mark as proposed in Skj A. The ms. thus has ‘giar’. This reading must be corrupt, as the metre requires a disyllable. It is possible that ‘giar’ is an abbreviation or mistake for gerðisk ‘made’ (inf. gera), which satisfies metre and sense and requires no further emendation. The placing of the verb is unusual by skaldic standards, but not by the standards of the poem (see Introduction). Skj B emends to vas ‘was’ rather than gerðisk, and reads skógar rather than skógs, which yields the necessary disyllable.