Love poem — Ólsv Love^III

The three fragments edited below (Ólsv Love) appear to belong to the genre of love poetry, and Finnur Jónsson (Skj) tentatively assigns the first two to et kærlighedsdigt ‘a love poem’, as does Kock in Skald (Kärleksdikt ‘Love poem’). There is no evidence that these were parts of a longer poem (or poems), however, and they could equally well belong to freestanding lausavísur. The first fragment, which is transmitted in mss A (main ms.), W and B of TGT, consists of one line only, and the lack of double alliteration and the aðalhending show that it is an even line and not an odd line. The second couplet is recorded in Orms-Eddu-brot (W, main ms.) and in the Y redaction of LaufE (mss 2368ˣ, 743ˣ). Both fragments are attributed to Óláfr Leggsson in all mss. The third half-stanza, which is found in mss A (main ms.) and W of TGT, is also attributed to ‘Óláfr’, but his patronymic is not given (TGT 1927, 60: sem Óláfr kvað ‘as Óláfr said’). Earlier editors (Björn Magnússon Ólsen, TGT 1884, 198; Finnur Jónsson, Skj; Kock, Skald), identified this Óláfr as Óláfr hvítaskáld ‘White Skald’ Þórðarson (Ólhv), the author of TGT. However, as Wills (2006, 1057) has shown, the helmingr is more plausibly attributed to Óláfr Leggsson, a contemporary of Óláfr Þórðarson, and hence it has been edited here as a fragment composed by him.

References

1. Bibliography
2. TGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
5. Wills, Tarrin. 2006. ‘The Anonymous Verse in the Third Grammatical Treatise’. In McKinnell et al. 2006, II, 1054-63.
6. Internal references
7. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 25 April 2024)
8. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10928> (accessed 25 April 2024)