Note to RvHbreiðm Hl 19III
[7-8]: The meaning of ‘girdr (or ‘girdur’) en’ in l. 7 is unclear (gyrðr, en ‘girdled, but’ (?)). In papp25ˣ the words are given with dots beneath each letter, which indicates that Rugman was uncertain about the transcription. As it stands in the mss, the line is unmetrical with one syllable too many, and there is no alliteration between ll. 7 and 8. (a) In the present edn, these words have been emended to sókn (f. acc. sg.) ‘attack’, qualified by skarpa, snarpa (f. acc. sg.) ‘swift, sharp’ (l. 8) as the object of gerði ‘made’ in a Type E-line. (b) Skj B and Skald render ll. 7-8 as follows: gumi gœddi sá | garpa snarpa ‘that man advanced the swift warriors’. That reading retains only two of the original words in the lines. (c) As Jón Helgason (Hl 1941) points out, this mistranscribed part of l. 7 most likely contained a word meaning ‘battle’. However, his suggestions sverðhríð ‘sword-storm’ or snerru ‘battle’ are incompatible with the metre, which requires only one metrical position.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.