Note to Anon (Vǫlsa) 3^I

[4] bjúg ‘crippled’: All eds take ‘bing’ as the ms. reading of Flat. However, the <n> in question cannot be differentiated from a <u>, and the same is true for 292ˣ. Since all paper mss that certainly descend from Flat (cf. Introduction) read ‘biug’, we can assume that this had also been the original version. (For confusion of ‘biug/bing’, cf. Anon Sól 76/1^VII and Hallm Hallkv 8/4^V (Bergb 8)). Kock (NN §2359) emends to biug (normalised bjúg), f. sg. of bjúgr ‘bowed, hooked, crooked, bent’, and this interpretation is adopted here. In order to clarify the word, Kock refers to sayings such as Ger. Lieber möchte mich Gott mit Lahmheit schlagen ‘May God rather strike me with lameness’, or Swed. Så må Herren jöra mig lytt och lam, om jag juger! ‘May God make me crippled and lame if I lie’. Finnur Jónsson’s emendation (Skj B) to þing in the sense of ‘valuables, jewels’ seems less probable. Düwel (1971, 165) holds to the putative ms. reading ‘bing’ and regards the word as bingr ‘a bed, bolster’: in order to avoid telling a lie, the daughter wants to retire to her bed.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Düwel, Klaus. 1971. Das Opferfest von Lade und die Geschichte vom Völsi: Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte. Partly published Göttingen: Habilitationsschrift.
5. Internal references
6. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Flateyjarbók’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=44> (accessed 19 April 2024)
7. Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Sólarljóð 76’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 349-50.
8. Tarrin Wills (ed.) 2022, ‘Bergbúa þáttr 8 (Hallmundr bergbúinn, Hallmundarkviða 8)’ 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. 47.