Note to ǪrvOdd Lv 7^VIII (Ǫrv 37)

[6] með Akvitánum ‘among the people of Aquitaine’: The reading of 7. All the other mss give the name Akvitánja, a region of south-west France. Oddr here alludes to an episode that takes place earlier in Ǫrv, when he was travelling in southern Europe. There are differences between the accounts of the various mss, although all associate Oddr’s adventure with his encounter with Christianity and his prime-signing by a local bishop; in 7 the location is in Sicily and the Greek islands. Akvitánjaland is said to be the headquarters of four chieftains who are terrorising Sicily. Oddr undertakes to get rid of them and does so successfully. At this point in the narrative, 7 cites Ævdr 53 (Ǫrv 123), which also refers to Aquitaine. In 344a and the younger mss the episode takes place in Akvitánjaland which is a region of Valland ok Frakkland ‘Gaul and the land of the Franks’ (Ǫrv 1888, 112-18) and the four men are highwaymen who assault and decapitate a bishop as he is riding along in company with a group of priests. Oddr kills the robbers, cuts off all their heads and goes back to the local church, where he returns the bishop’s head to his congregation.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
3. Internal references
4. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ǫrvar-Odds saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 804. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=35> (accessed 25 April 2024)
5. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 123 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 53)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 930.