Note to Arn Frag 3III
[All]: The helmingr’s depiction of a hero sailing warships out to sea and spilling (enemy) blood for the benefit of the raven could fit any of Arnórr’s patrons: the Norwegian kings Magnús and Haraldr, the Orcadian jarls Þorfinnr or Rǫgnvaldr or Knútr inn ríki (Cnut the Great; cf. Arn Frag 4 and Note to [All]). But the known dróttkvætt poems for the first four are all erfidrápur ‘memorial drápur’ (edited in SkP II), whereas the fragment is in the pres. tense, which would be compatible with the suggestion (e.g. LH I, 611) that this could be a remnant of the lost Blágagladrápa ‘Drápa of Dark Geese (= Ravens (?))’ which Arnórr is said to have recited for Haraldr Sigurðarson on the same occasion as Arn HrynII was addressed to Magnús Óláfsson (see Biography of Arnórr, SkP II, 177; Mork 1928-32, 118; ÍF 23, 146).
References
- Bibliography
- LH = Finnur Jónsson. 1920-4. Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie. 3 vols. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Gad.
- Mork 1928-32 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1928-32. Morkinskinna. SUGNL 53. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
- SkP II = Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Ed. Kari Ellen Gade. 2009.
- ÍF 23-4 = Morkinskinna. Ed. Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson. 2009.
- Internal references
- Diana Whaley 2009, ‘ Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Hrynhenda, Magnússdrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 181-206. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1101> (accessed 26 April 2024)
- Diana Whaley (ed.) 2017, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Fragments 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 6.