Note to Ótt Hfl 1^I

[1-2]: These lines echo the first two lines of Sigv Lv 2, the lausavísa with which Sigvatr supposedly sought service with Óláfr Haraldsson: Hlýð mínum brag, meiðir | myrkblás, þvít kannk yrkja ‘Listen to my poetry, destroyer of the dark black (steed of awnings [SHIP > WARRIOR]), because I know how to compose’ (the ship-kenning appears in Sigvatr’s l. 4). Finnur Jónsson assumes that l. 2 is simply a mistaken scribal duplication of Sigvatr’s line (and hence he does not print a l. 2 in Skj B), but, as noted below, Kock argues that Óttarr, at the start of his own poem seeking service with Óláfr, is deliberately recalling and wittily re-using Sigvatr’s call for a hearing (see also Fidjestøl 1982, 214-5); this includes the opening Hlýð ‘Listen’. Skj B suggests minni is part of the poss. pron. minn (qualifying a f. noun such as drápu in the putative lost l. 2). Kock (NN §721), however, takes minni as the noun ‘memory, recollection’, and this solution is adopted here, not least because, as Rainford (1995, 62) points out, Sigvatr uses minni in a similar sense in Víkv 1/6.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Fidjestøl, Bjarne. 1982. Det norrøne fyrstediktet. Universitet i Bergen Nordisk institutts skriftserie 11. Øvre Ervik: Alvheim & Eide.
5. Rainford, Jessica. 1995. ‘Óláfr Haraldsson, King and Saint of Norway, and the Development of Skaldic Style (ca.1015-ca.1153)’. D. Phil. thesis. University of Oxford.
6. Internal references
7. Judith Jesch (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Víkingarvísur 1’ 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. 534.
8. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Lausavísur 2’ 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. 701.