Note to Edáð Banddr 7I
[3] sundi eyja ‘the sound of islands’: Probably a bay or sound with a profusion of islands. This would fit the Gulf of Riga; cf. Ohlmarks (1958, 510), who suggests that Ösel, Dagö and Wormsö (Estonian Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Vormsi), off the Estonian mainland, are the islands referred to. That localisation is compatible with the geographical information in Hkr (see Context). However, the detailed accuracy of Hkr at this point is disputed, and Fsk (ÍF 29, 165), although it does not cite the stanza, places the capture of the Danish warships more plausibly in the Eyrarsund (Øresund). Fidjestøl (1982, 113, and cf. CPB II, 52, 570) suggests an error for Eyrarsundi in the stanza and favours the Fsk account, but ultimately there is no means of knowing whether Fsk is correct or is substituting a familiar location for an unfamiliar one. Finnur Jónsson (Hkr 1893-1901, IV; similarly ÍF 26) understands sundi eyja as ‘sound between two islands’.
References
- Bibliography
- Fidjestøl, Bjarne. 1982. Det norrøne fyrstediktet. Universitet i Bergen Nordisk institutts skriftserie 11. Øvre Ervik: Alvheim & Eide.
- CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
- ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
- Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
- ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
- Ohlmarks, Åke. 1958. Tors skalder och Vite-Krists. Trosskiftestidens isländska furstelovskalder, 980-1013. Stockholm: Geber.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=4> (accessed 27 April 2024)
- (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Fagrskinna’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=56> (accessed 27 April 2024)