Án Lv 5VIII (Án 5)
Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Áns saga bogsveigis 5 (Án bogsveigir, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 12.
text and translation
Meyjar spurðu, er mik fundu,
hvíthaddaðar: ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’
En ek svaraða silki-Gunni
heldr hæðinni: ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’
Hvíthaddaðar meyjar spurðu, er mik fundu: ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’ En ek svaraða {heldr hæðinni silki-Gunni}: ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’
‘The fair-haired maidens asked, when they met me: ‘Where did you come from, fourfold?’ But I answered the rather mocking silk-Gunnr <valkyrie> [WOMAN]: ‘Where does the calm outside come from?’ ’
notes and context
Án stays the summer with a farmer whose daughter is named Drífa ‘Snow-storm’, the girl to whom Ketill was previously making advances (cf. Context to st. 4). Án is wearing four layers of clothing and is neither well-dressed nor good-looking. One day he meets Drífa outdoors. She is in the company of three other girls and is not only very pretty but also very elegantly dressed. Drífa and her companions make fun of Án’s garb, and Drífa asks him: ‘Hvaðan gekktu at nú, ferfaldr?’ ‘Frá smiðum,’ sagði Án ‘“From where did you come now, fourfold?” “From work,” said Án’. The farmer orders the girls to stop making fun of Án, and then Án recapitulates his exchange with the girls in this stanza, which probably plays on the name Drífa; cf. Note to l. 8 below.
The metre of this stanza is fornyrðislag. — According to Ólafur Haldórsson (1973, 81), this stanza originated as a riddle about a rainbow and a billow on the sea in calm weather, presumably because there are similarities in diction between it and some of the riddles in Heiðr and because ll. 3-4 and 8 may carry double meanings (see Notes to l. 3 and l. 8 below). Ólafur suggested that the author of the saga may have been inspired by the word ferfaldr ‘fourfold’ (l. 4) in the original stanza (where it would refer to the colours of the rainbow) to invent the motif of Án’s four layers of clothing. This hypothesis is attractive but cannot be verified. It is more likely that some of the terms used in the stanza to refer to the young women draw on associations with riddles for natural phenomena in order to play on the basic (common noun) sense of the name Drífa.
readings
sources
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
-
AM 343 a 4° (343a) — 84r/40 - 84r/41
Meyjar spurðu,
images
er mik fundu,
hvít†haddaraðar†:
‘hvaðan †komti† ferfaldr?’
En ek svaraða
silki-Gunni
heldr hæðinni:
‘hvaðan er logn úti?’ -
AM 109 a I 8°x (109a Ix) — 10r/2 - 10r/5
Meyjar spurðu,
images
er mik fundu,
hvíthaddaðar:
‘hvaðan komst ferfaldr?’
En ek svaraða
silki-Gunni
heldr hæðinni:
‘hvaðan er logn úti?’ -
AM 173 folx (173x) — 72v/31 - 73r/5
imagesMeyiar spurðu | er mic fundu | hvithaddaðar || hvaþan komztu ferfalldr | enn ec svaraðe | silkigunne | helldr hæðinne | hvaþan er logn uti |
(VEÞ)
-
AM 395 folx (395 folx) — 192r/11 - 192r/19
imagesMeijar spurdo | er mic fundo | hvijthaddadar | hvadan komst | ferfaldur | enn ec svarade silkigunne | heldur hœdinn | hvadann er logn uti |
(VEÞ)
-
AM 340 4°x (340x) — 175/16 - 175/19
imagesMeýar sp | urdu er mig fundu huýt haddadar huadan komstu | ferfalldur , enn eg suarade Sýlckegunne helldur hæd | inne , huadan er Logn vte:
(VEÞ)
-
AM 560 c 4°x (560cx) — 76v/17 - 76v/20
imagesMeyar spurdu er | Mig fundu huythaddadar, huadann komst fer fal | ldur, Enn eg Suar ad Silke gunne, helldur hœdinne | huadann er logn vte
(VEÞ)
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