Note to KrákÁsl Lv 6^VIII (Ragn 17)

[1-4]: Among previous eds, only Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 207) (perhaps followed by Eskeland (Ragn 1944) is clear in taking heiman ‘from home’ in l. 3 together with kaga ‘gaze (at), watch’, in l. 1, in the sense of ‘watch … from home’. All others (including those of CPB, who, however, leave ll. 2-4 partly blank) seem to treat ll. 1-2 as syntactically independent, as does the present ed. Rafn (FSN) follows 1824b in ll. 3-4, while Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) emends heim af in l. 3 to harmi at and ‘hvsgafs’ in l. 4 to húsgangs ‘begging from house to house’; neither’s text lends itself to satisfactory interpretation. Olsen takes kaga ‘gaze at’, as transitive, with its object mávangs ‘the gull-field [SEA]’ in l. 2 in the gen. He emends 1824b’s heim af in l. 3 to heima ‘at home’, understanding it to modify the verb eruð immediately preceding it, while taking heiman to modify kaga in l. 1, as said; he also emends to húsgangs in l. 4, thus: ‘my sons let me gaze at the sea for a long time from home, (while) you, at home, are only moderately capable (meðalfærir, i.e. hardly even capable) of begging from house to house’. Olsen further considers, without committing himself to it, the alternative possibility of emending heim af in l. 3 to hreina, gen. pl. of hreinn m. ‘reindeer’ and taking it as the base-word in a kenning for ‘ships’, with mávangs ‘the gull-field’s’, ‘sea’s’, as determinant, and forming the gen. object of kaga, thus producing: ‘my sons let me gaze at the reindeer of the gull-field [SEA > SHIPS] for a long time from home …’. Finnur Jónsson’s emendation of af in l. 3 to ok ‘and’ (Skj B) gives very satisfactory sense in the context (heim ok heiman ‘homewards and from home’), intensifying the idea of ‘from house to house’ implicit in the emended form húsgangs in l. 4, which Finnur also adopts. His text of ll. 3-4 is followed by Kock (Skald), Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ), Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) and also by the present ed.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
8. Ragn 1944 = Eskeland, Severin, ed. and trans. 1944. Soga om Ragnar Lodbrok med Kråka-kvædet. Norrøne bokverk 16. 2nd ed. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. [1st ed. 1914].
9. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
10. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.