Ferðavísur — Refr FerðvIII
Hofgarða-Refr GestssonEdith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2017, ‘ Hofgarða-Refr Gestsson, Ferðavísur’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 243. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1230> (accessed 20 April 2024)
These five dróttkvætt stanzas called Ferðavísur ‘Stanzas about journeys’ (Refr Ferðv) are all found in SnE and LaufE, where they are attributed to a Refr. Guðbrandur Vigfússon (CPB II, 166-8) was the first to suggest that they belonged to one poem, and he also gave this poem its modern title, Ferðavísur. These stanzas share a common theme, namely, depictions of seafaring describing the voyage of a ship battling high wind and waves. It is characteristic of these stanzas that they use congruent images carried through several stanzas. Ships are treated as animate beings in the grip of animate destructive forces. Kuhn (1977b, 149) believed that the stanzas are related to the storm stanzas of Helgakviða Hundingsbana I (e.g. HHund I 28-30), and he dated them to the reign of Knútr inn ríki Sveinsson (Cnut the Great), i.e. to between 1014 and 1035. It is possible that the fifth stanza refers to the legendary tradition surrounding Ǫrvar-Oddr, however, and if that is correct, all the stanzas collected here may come from a poem about Ǫrvar-Oddr’s Bjarmaland voyage (see Notes to st. 5 [All] and st. 5/4).
This edition makes use of the following mss: R (main ms.) and Tˣ of SnE for all stanzas, with st. 2 appearing twice in these mss; the SnE mss W and U for sts 1-3; ms. B (supplemented by 744ˣ) for sts 1-3 and 5; mss A and C for sts 2, 4 and 5. Stanzas 2, 3 and 4 are also transmitted in mss 2368ˣ and 743ˣ of LaufE.
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1977b. ‘Uns ist Fahrwind gegeben: Aus einer großen Zeit des Nordens’. ZDA 106, 147-63.
- Internal references
- Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
- Not published: do not cite ()
- (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 20 April 2024)
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