Anon Heil 7^VII

Ingvar nefna enskir saungvar
illan kóng, er lögunum spillir;
ræna vildi ríki sínu
ræsi þann og forsið æsir.
Þeingill varð í þessu fanginn
... gramr †að ... b…gir†
þeim fyr skotspón

Enskir saungvar nefna illan kóng, Ingvar, er spillir lögunum; ræna vildi ræsi þann ríki sínu og æsir forsið. Þeingill varð fanginn í þessu ... gramr †að b…gir† fyr skotspón þeim.

English poems mention a wicked king, Ingvarr, who destroys the laws; he wanted to rob that king of his kingdom and moves forward with rage. The king was captured during this ... angry ... as a target for them ...

Mss: 720a VI(1r-v), 399a-bˣ

Readings: [6] b…gir†: ‘[...]’ 399a‑bˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 512-13, Skj BII, 564, Skald II, 309; Kahle 1898, 92, 112.

Notes: [1] Ingvar: Ari Þorgilsson was the first Icel. writer to give the name of Edmund’s murderer as Ívarr (the usual spelling in OIcel.) and identify him as a son of Ragnarr loðbrók; see Note to st. 5 above. The form of the name in Heil is unusual and may perhaps indicate that the enskir saungvar ‘English poems’ the poet mentions used a form of the name similar to Abbo’s Hinguar (Winterbottom 1972, 71). — [6]: To Kahle ‘firir’ or ‘fri[...]’ was visible before gramr, while to Finnur Jónsson (Skj A) ‘r’ was visible after ‘b’, but he did not record the ‘gir’ following. — [7] fyr skotspón þeim ‘as a target for them [the Vikings]’: All versions of Edmund’s martyrdom, following Abbo, emphasise this feature, and the fact that he was tied to a tree and shot full of arrows, like S. Sebastian, until he bristled uelut asper herecius aut spinis hirtus carduus ‘like a prickly hedgehog or a thistle bristly with spines’ (Winterbottom 1972, 78).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Winterbottom, Michael, ed. 1972. Three Lives of English Saints. Toronto Medieval Latin Texts. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies for the Centre for Medieval Studies.
5. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
6. Internal references
7. Not published: do not cite (Rloð^VIII)
8. Kirsten Wolf 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Heilagra manna drápa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 872-90. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1016> (accessed 26 April 2024)