[8] of sinnar Aðils ‘companions of Aðils’: Aðils was a legendary king in Sweden, and the enemy of Hrólfr kraki, so it would seem inappropriate here to refer to Hrólfr’s men by such a phrase, and Olrik (in Hollander 1919, 197) suggested an (unmetrical) emendation to *aðalsinnar ‘excellent followers’. However, Bugge (1887, 13) had previously suggested that the phrase might refer to an earlier episode in the legend of Hrólfr kraki, as reported in Skm (SnE 1998, I, 58-9), in which he sent his twelve berserks to help Aðils gain the kingdom of the Svíar from a rival, Áli, and this is plausible enough. In ll. 7-8 Bb, Flat and Tóm have allir inir œztu | Aðils ok Svía ‘all the noblest [men] of Aðils and the Swedes’.
References
- Bibliography
- SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Bugge, Sophus. 1887. ‘Studien über das Beowulfepos’. BGDSL(H) 12, 1-112, 360-75.
- Hollander, Lee M. 1919. The Heroic Legends of Denmark. Trans. and rev. by Axel Olrik in collaboration with the author. Scandinavian Monographs 4. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
- Internal references
- (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 26 April 2024)