Anon Sól 9^VII

Ekki þeir hugðu        Unnarr ok Sævaldi,
        at þeim mundi heill hrapa;
nöktir þeir urðu        ok næmðir hvervetna
        ok runnu sem vargar til viðar.

Þeir Unnarr ok Sævaldi hugðu ekki at heill mundi hrapa þeim; þeir urðu nöktir ok næmðir hvervetna, ok runnu sem vargar til viðar.

Unnarr and Sævaldi did not think that their good fortune would tumble down; they became naked and deprived everywhere, and ran like wolves to the woods.

Mss: 166bˣ(45v), papp15ˣ(1v), 738ˣ(80r), 167b 6ˣ(1v), 214ˣ(149r-v), 1441ˣ(581), 10575ˣ(2r-v), 2797ˣ(231)

Readings: [1] þeir: þau 214ˣ    [2] Unnarr: so papp15ˣ, 738ˣ, 167b 6ˣ, 10575ˣ, 2797ˣ, ‘unr’ 166bˣ, Unn 214ˣ    [4] nöktir þeir urðu: so papp15ˣ, 738ˣ, 167b 6ˣ, 214ˣ, 1441ˣ, 10575ˣ, 2797ˣ;    nöktir: blank space 166bˣ    [5] ok: ‘[...]ok’ 214ˣ;    næmðir: næmir papp15ˣ, 167b 6ˣ, 214ˣ, 1441ˣ, 10575ˣ, 2797ˣ;    hvervetna: hvivetna 2797ˣ    [6] vargar: vargr 1441ˣ, 10575ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 629, Skj BI, 636, Skald I, 309; Bugge 1867, 358, Falk 1914, 4, Björn M. Ólsen 1915, 8, Fidjestøl 1979, 61, Njörður Njarðvík 1991, 47-9, Njörður Njarðvík 1993, 15ˣ, 94.

Notes: [All]: Unnarr and Sævaldi are the first of a number of characters in the poem whose quasi-allegorical names are apparently invented, though they may consist of pre-existing name elements such as -ulfr ‘-wolf’ or -ný (cf. AEW: -ný). (Sörli and Vígolfr in st. 20 as attested pers. names are the exception.) That four of the five exempla in the first section of Sól concern paired allegorically-named characters motivates Falk, following Bugge and Vigfússon, to move st. 80, with its isolated reference to Sváfr and Sváfrlogi to initial position in the poem (Falk 1914, 2). There is a comparable use of invented names in Fj. — [2] Unnarr (male pers. n.) ‘Unnarr’: There is some doubt about Unnarr, a name form which occurs in papp15ˣ, 738ˣ, and 43 other mss. Eight mss, including 166bˣ, have the indeterminate ‘unr’; 11 mss have Unnr or a similar form which could be f., and accordingly give a n. pron. þau. — [3] þeim mundi heill hrapa ‘their good fortune would tumble down’: Although the sense is somewhat different, cf. Reg 25/6 illt er fyr heill at hrapa ‘it is bad to stumble when good fortune is needed’. According to LP: 3. heill, these two instances are the only collocations of heill and hrapa in the corpus. Njörður Njarðvík (1991, 180) suggests somewhat improbably that this may be evidence of a direct link between the two poems. — [4]: This l. is missing in 166bˣ. — [5] næmðir ‘deprived’: P.p. of næma ‘to deprive’, found in 8 mss including 166bˣ, as against papp15ˣ, 738ˣ, and the majority of mss which show næmir ‘able to be caught, taken’ (LP: næmr, in the passive sense). Both senses are possible. — [6] vargar ‘wolves’: Cf. HHund II 33: ef þú værir vargr á viðom úti ‘if you were a wolf out in the woods’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
4. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
5. Fidjestøl, Bjarne, ed. 1979a. Sólarljóð: Tydning og Tolkningsgrunnlag. Nordisk Instituts skrifteserie 4. Bergen, Oslo and Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget.
6. Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1915a. Sólarljóð: gefin út með skíringum og athugasemdum. Safn til sögu Íslands og íslenzkra bókmenta 5.1. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja Gutenberg.
7. Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1867. Norrœn fornkvæði. Islandsk samling af folkelige oldtidsdigte om nordens guder og heroer. Almindelig kaldet Sæmundar Edda hins frøda. Christiania (Oslo): Malling. Rpt. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1965.
8. Falk, Hjalmar, ed. 1914a. Sólarljóð. Videnskapsselskapets skrifter II. Hist.-filos. kl. 7. 2 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Dybwad.
9. Njörður P. Njarðvik, ed. 1991. Sólarljóð. Útgáfa og umfjöllun. Íslensk Rit 10. Reykjavík: Bókmenntafræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands og Menningarsjóður.
10. Njörður P. Njarðvik. 1993. Solsången. Akademisk avhandling för filosofiedoktorsexamen i nordiska språk. Göteborgs universitet: Institutionen för svensk språket.
11. Internal references
12. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Sǫrla þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 785. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=41> (accessed 24 April 2024)
13. Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Sólarljóð’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 287-357. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1041> (accessed 24 April 2024)
14. Not published: do not cite ()
15. Not published: do not cite ()
16. Not published: do not cite ()