Note to Bót Lv 1II
[6] finnask ‘meet’: Both Skj B and Skald emend to finna ‘find’, presumably on the grounds that the refl. form of the verb does not take an acc. object, giving a basic sense of ‘the warriors find the game-bird’. ÍF 34, 258 keeps the reading of both mss and construes the sentence somewhat awkwardly as ‘the warriors find for themselves a game-bird (to hunt)’. Bibire (1988, 239) also keeps the ms. reading but translates ‘where the frenzied staves of the wound-serpent ... meet grouse’. A further possibility is to construe the verb as reciprocal and olmir stafir undlinns and lynghœsn as parallel subjects, giving ‘the warriors [and] the game-bird meet’. This is the solution adopted here, while recognising that none is entirely satisfactory.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- ÍF 34 = Orkneyinga saga. Ed. Finnbogi Guðmundsson. 1965.
- Bibire, Paul. 1988. ‘The Poetry of Earl Rǫgnvaldr’s Court’. In Crawford 1988, 208-40.