Note to Sigv Víkv 9I
[5] austan ‘from the east’: In the absence of a better solution, this is taken here as qualifying the noun ógnvaldr ‘battle-causer [WARRIOR]’ (so also NN §614, ÍF 27 and LP: austan, with emendation of ógnvaldr to allvaldr). In addressing Óláfr as ‘from the east’, Sigvatr may simply mean ‘from Norway’, from an Icelandic point of view (cf. austmaðr ‘Norwegian’), or else may refer specifically to Óláfr’s early campaigns in the Baltic. The usage is unusual, since austan most often qualifies verbs or full sentences, as in Sigv Knútdr 7/2 frá austan ‘learned [news] from the east’. Finnur Jónsson (see Note to l. 7 below) originally took austan with danskr herr ‘Danish army’, which gives good sense but awkward word order.
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
- Internal references
- Matthew Townend (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Knútsdrápa 7’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 658.