[3] esat (3rd pers. sg. pres. ind.) ‘are not’: Lit. ‘is not’. We should have expected a pl. form of the verb (erut ‘are not’; see NN §2741), especially since it directly precedes the subject (see NS §66 Anm. 3). All the mss have the sg., however, and similar constructions are attested in poetry (see ÍF 2, 231 n. c and Egill Lv 41/6V).
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
- ÍF 2 = Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. Ed. Sigurður Nordal. 1933.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 71 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 41)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 291.