Note to Þjóð Yt 25I
[4] sás vas fyr lǫngu ‘who lived long ago’: The line is hypermetrical, for which reason Skj B, Skald and Åkerlund (1939, 115) suppress fyr despite its presence in all mss. Yt 1925, ÍF 26 and Hkr 1991 retain it. The line also figures in the discussion of the dating of Yt. One assumption has been that such a phrase could not have been used in reference to anyone appearing so late in the enumerated line of kings, i.e. almost as a contemporary of the skald (Bugge 1894, 168; Wadstein 1895a, 83; Krag 1991, 139). The adv. forðum ‘once’ (st. 26/6) is assessed similarly. Åkerlund (1939, 15-17), however, demonstrates from parallels that the expression could refer to a more recent past, even within the skald’s lifetime.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Krag, Claus. 1991. Ynglingatal og Ynglingesaga. En studie i historiske Kilder. Studia Humaniora 2. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
- ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
- Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
- Wadstein, Elis. 1895a. ‘Bidrag till tolkning och belysning av skalde- ock Edda-dikter. I. Till tolkningen av Ynglingatal’. ANF 11, 64-92.
- Yt 1925 = Noreen, Adolf, ed. 1925. Ynglingatal: Text, översättning och kommentar. Stockholm: Lagerström.
- Bugge, Sophus. 1894. Bidrag til den ældste skaldedigtnings historie. Christiania (Oslo): Aschehoug.
- Åkerlund, Walter. 1939. Studier över Ynglingatal. Skrifta utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund 23. Lund: Gleerup.
- Internal references
- Edith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2012, ‘ Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal’ 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. 3. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1440> (accessed 19 April 2024)