Note to HvítRagn Lv 1^VIII (Ragn 21)

[1-4]: Various interpretations of these lines have been proposed by earlier eds, depending on which variants they adopt into their edited texts. (a) Assuming that ll. 1-2 and 3-4 form separate clauses, and adopting the Hb readings ýmsu (n. dat. sg. of ýmiss ‘various, many a’) and illu, as in this edn, Ragn 1891 and Ragn 1985, gives the overall meaning ‘Let us think before we promise, so that vengeance may be achieved. Let us allow Agnarr’s slayer to encounter various misfortunes’. (b) In Skj B Finnur Jónsson dispenses with the comma after heitim in his earlier reading of the Hb text, takes bana (Agnars) as the dat. (patient) object of hefnt, thus giving the meaning ‘let us think before we promise that vengeance may be taken on Agnarr’s slayer’, and adopts the 1824b reading ýmsa (m. acc. pl.) but retains the Hb reading illu, n. dat. sg. of illr ‘bad’, taking the latter as substantival and the object of fagna ‘greet, encounter’, thus giving the meaning ‘let us allow various people to encounter misfortune’. So also Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 209-10), acknowledging Finnur’s help. Eskeland (Ragn 1944), Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ), and Ebel (Ragn 2003) retain the comma after heitim but otherwise follow Skj B, thus giving (presumably) the meaning ‘Let us think before we promise anything, so that vengeance on Agnarr’s slayer may be achieved. Let us allow various people …’, etc. (c) Keeping 1824b’s readings ýmsa illa, it would be possible (as in the translation offered above in the first Note to ll. 1-4) to interpret ýmsa m. acc. pl., ‘various [people]’ as the object of látum ‘let us allow’, with inf. fagna ‘welcome’ (qualified by illa, adv. ‘badly’) as object complement: ‘let us allow various people to welcome badly …’, i.e. ‘give an evil welcome to …’, and bana (Agnars), m. dat. sg., as the object of fagna, with the idea of giving Agnarr’s slayer an ‘evil welcome’ (lit. ‘welcome Agnarr’s slayer badly’). Cf. the name of the allegorical figure Malvenu ‘Ill-come’ (as opposed to bienvenu ‘welcome’), the porter at the entrance to the House of Pride in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto IV, st. 6.

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. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
4. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
5. 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].
6. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
7. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
8. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.