Note to Bragi Rdr 1^III

[1] Hrafnketill: The unsyncopated, older form of the pers. n. Hrafnkell (cf. ANG §359.2) is required by metre and present in all mss. The poet addresses this man directly and urges him to listen to his poem, which is evidently about both a painted shield (see below) and an unnamed prince. Internal evidence thus indicates that this is an opening helmingr of a shield poem. However, if it forms part of the same poem as st. 2, which seemingly alludes to Ragnarr loðbrók, and if both belong to Rdr, then who is Hrafnketill? It is unusual for an early Viking-Age skald to address a messenger, who has arguably brought the shield from his patron to the poet (so Gísli Brynjúlfsson 1860, 5; CPB II, 2; cf. Wood 1960a) in his opening stanza, rather than the patron himself, although this remains a possibility and presupposes either oral memorisation of the poem or a written text inscribed on a rune stick. There is early Viking-Age evidence for the use of runic message sticks from both Hedeby and Staraja Ladoga (cf. Liestøl 1971) and the missionary Ansgar, after a visit to Birka in 831, is said to have delivered a letter from the Swedish king, possibly in runes, to the Emperor Louis the Pious (Trillmich, Buchner and Scior 2000, 42). Another view (Marold 1986b, 445-6) is that Bragi and Hrafnketill are rival poets engaged in some form of competition. This idea is dependent upon the mention of a certain ‘Brahi’ and ‘Rankil’ in Saxo Grammaticus’s account of the battle of Brávellir (Saxo 2015, I, viii. 3. 10, pp. 540-1), where they are named as being among the Icelandic supporters of King Sigurðr hringr ‘Ring’ (see Note to st. 2/4).

References

1. Bibliography
2. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
3. 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.
4. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
5. Wood, Cecil. 1960a. ‘The Skald’s Bid for a Hearing’. JEGP 59, 240-54.
6. Gísli Brynjúlfsson. 1860. ‘Bragi den gamles kvad om Ragnar Lodbrogs skjold’. ANOH, 3-13.
7. Liestøl, Aslak. 1971. ‘The Literate Vikings’. In Foote et al. 1973, 69-78.
8. Marold, Edith. 1986b. ‘Ragnarsdrápa und Ragnarssage. Versuch einer Interpretation der Ragnarsdrápa’. In Brogyanyi et al. 1986, 427-57.
9. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
10. Internal references
11. Not published: do not cite (Rloð^VIII)
12. Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 27. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1130> (accessed 25 April 2024)