Note to Anon Krm 24VIII
[5-6]: These lines contain an acc. and inf. construction, with Ellu as the subject acc. and inf. vera ‘be’ omitted, meaning: ‘I did not imagine Ælle (to be) in the role of my slayer (i.e. the cause of my death)’; for at ‘in the role of’ (l. 6) cf. LP: 1. at 7. The lines resemble Ragn 26/5-6, and bear some resemblance to st. 28, ll. 5-6, 8, below, as Olrik (1892-4, II, 97) and de Vries (1927a, 53) noted. Line 6 is the same as Ragn 26/6, also in the context of Ragnarr’s death in King Ælle’s snake-pit, and the word aldrlag ‘death’, lit. ‘laying down of life’, also occurs in RvHbreiðm Hl 15/7III, apparently in the context of the slaying of Ælle by Ragnarr’s son Ívarr in revenge for Ragnarr’s death. There is likely to be a relationship of some kind, beyond their shared subject, between the present stanza and the one in Ragn, though the nature of that relationship has been disputed (cf. McTurk 1991a, 127-31; 2012b, 376-81). See further the Notes to st. 28 [All] and 5-6, 8, below.
References
- Bibliography
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- McTurk, Rory. 1991a. Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Medium Ævum Monographs new ser. 15. Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature.
- Olrik, Axel. 1892-4. Kilderne til Saxses oldhistorie: en literaturhistorisk undersøgelse. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Wroblewski.
- Vries, Jan de. 1927a. ‘Die Krákumál I’. Neophilologus 13, 51-60.
- Internal references
- 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 3 June 2024)
- Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘ Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1001. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1347> (accessed 3 June 2024)
- Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 26 (Ragnarr loðbrók, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 676.