2. Text

a. Layout

The two helmingar of each stanza must be presented vertically, although the printed edition may present them side-by-side. Verses in fornyrðislag, málaháttr or ljóðaháttr will be printed in long lines, as frequently in eddic editions.

In the case of long poems in kviðuháttr, editors should set stanza breaks according to the evidence of the mss, syntax and sense, not necessarily assuming eight-line stanzas (as Skj does).

b. Orthography

i. Normalised orthography will be used, following the >> 5. Guidelines on normalisation, which offer two main systems, as appropriate to poetry assigned in the mss to dates before and after c. 1250. (I.e. the ms. evidence is to be taken on trust, notwithstanding any editorial reservations.)

ii. Enclitics will be printed without apostrophe, e.g. þars, veitk.

iii. Abbreviations will be silently expanded, and not italicised.

iv. Routine restoration of archaic forms, e.g. replacement of ms. þar er by þars, is regarded as part of the normalisation, not as emendation, and hence needs no signalling or comment. (Such matters will be explained in the Introduction.)

c. Illegible letters or lacunae

i. These will be indicated by three dots ( ... ) irrespective of the presumed number of missing letters. The dots are to be used alone, without brackets.

d. Emendations

i. Emendations, i.e. readings not found in any ms., will be indicated by italics. Only the exact letter(s) or word(s) emended are to be italicised.

ii. If an emendation to the Text should consist of deletion or reversal of a word or words in the main ms., this cannot be indicated in the Text but should be signalled in the Variant readings.

e. Punctuation

i. The end of the helmingr is to be marked by a full stop or punktum (.), unless the second helmingr is syntactically linked to the first (for instance where it begins þars, svát or en), in which case a comma (,) or semi-colon (;) should be used.

ii. Where clauses are complete and consecutive within the helmingr, their boundaries within the helmingr are to be marked by a semi-colon (;).

iii. Lines belonging to klofastef can be marked off from the body of the verse by a full stop.

iv. Apostrophes should be marked off by commas, e.g. Vilið, Hrafnketill, heyra ...

‡ v. Question marks should be included if necessary, e.g. Sigv 11, 9/7-8:

hvé lengi skal, hringum
hans grund, til þess fundra?

‡ vi. Direct speech should be indicated by single quotation marks, e.g. GSúrs 24/1-4:

‘Hingat skalt’, kvað hringa
Hildr at óðar gildi,
‘fleina þollr, með Fullu
fallheyjaðar deyja’.

f. Punctuation of intercalary clauses

i. Where intercalaries are complete, independent (main) clauses: long dashes should be used at beginning and end to mark them off from the rest of the text. This punctuation should be used where two such clauses follow each other, even though it may result in two long dashes being juxtaposed.

ii. Where intercalaries are independent (main) clauses, but are discontinuous: parentheses should be placed around the discontinuous parts.

iii. Where intercalaries are subordinate clauses or parts of subordinate clauses, their bounds are to be indicated by commas.

g. Alternative texts

Where readings of mss differ so radically as to yield alternative versions of verses, one version should be chosen as the main text and the alternative printed complete in the Notes. This may also be done in cases where the two helmingar of a stanza appear in a different order in different mss if absolutely necessary. However, this situation can also be handled by 3-d-i below. The electronic version of the edition will provide complete texts from individual mss.

h. Categorisation in Skjaldedigtning

Immediately following the text, there must be an indication of Finnur’s categorisation/numbering of the verse in Skj in the following form (Hallfreðar saga verse 18):

{= Skj Hallfrøðr vandræðaskáld, Lausavísa 15}

This means that, in Skj, this verse appears as Hallfreðr’s 15th lausavísa. The form of the poet name and poem will follow the form in Skj. Where the poet’s name is complex (i.e. contains more than two main names and enn, í or similar), the short form used in the index to Skj. should be used, hence:

‘Tindr Hallkelsson’, ‘Kolli enn prúði’ or ‘Þrandr í Gǫtu’ are given as such, but

‘Bjǫrn Arngeirsson hitdœlakappi’ is replaced by ‘Bjǫrn hitdœlakappi’ and ‘Þórarinn svarti Þórólfsson máhlíðingr’ by ‘Þórarinn máhlíðingr’.

References