Note to ǪrvOdd Ævdr 21VIII (Ǫrv 91)
[All]: This stanza may relate to a section of the prose saga (Ǫrv 1888, 42-5) which tells how a giantess named Greip wades across to the island from the mainland to attack Oddr and his men. Oddr takes up a position behind the bear he has killed and flayed and placed on a headland. He has put glowing embers in the animal’s mouth and he shoots an arrow through the bear towards the giantess, but she deflects it with her hand. Then Oddr shoots another arrow which strikes her in the eye and flies out the back of her head. His third arrow goes through her other eye (not her breast, as in the stanza). A little later in the narrative, and immediately before Ǫrv 91 is cited in the prose text, a comparable incident occurs: Oddr and Ásmundr are now on the mainland and have entered a cave where the giantess’s father and mother are sitting. Here Oddr again shoots his arrows, one hitting the giant’s wife in the armpit, another the giant’s eye.
References
- Bibliography
- Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 91 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 21)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 903.