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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to RvHbreiðm Hl 79III

[2] við ‘against’: (a) The present edn follows Hl 1941. The reading is conjectural and both mss have skar ‘cut’. Rugman may have mistaken a prep. (við ‘against’ + acc. pl. (?)) for the verb skar ‘cut’. Admittedly, it is difficult to see how við could be read as skar, but Rugman’s transcription of the word in papp25ˣ (‘ṣc̣ạṛ’), shows that he was uncertain about all of the letters in that word (see the discussion in Hl 1941). The verb skar with the object legg ‘leg’ occurs in st. 77/1, 4 as well, and could have influenced Rugman’s interpretation of a word he was unable to make out (see also beit egg manns legg ‘an edge bit a man’s leg’ in st. 78/2, the stanza directly preceding this one).  (b) Skj B renders the line as egg gall; hjǫrr skar leggi ‘the edge resounded; the sword cut legs’, which is in violation of álagsháttr (positions 2-6 ought to form one independent clause; see Note to l. 1 above). (c) Kock also construes two clauses (positions 2-6): hjǫrr gall; skar leggi ‘the sword resounded; [it] cut the legs’ which creates an awkward, tripartite line and again violates the syntactic pattern of álagsháttr.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  3. Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

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