Svart Skauf 2^VIII

Því voru nítján         niðjar skaufhala
hunds jafningja         heldr en tuttugu,
— þar sannaðiz forn         fyrða mæli —
að oft verðr örgum         eins vant á tög.

Því voru nítján niðjar skaufhala, jafningja hunds, heldr en tuttugu, að oft verðr örgum vant eins á tög; þar sannaðiz forn mæli fyrða.

It was for that reason that there were nineteen offspring of Tassel-tail, a dog’s equal, rather than twenty because the wicked one often lacks one from ten; there the old saying of men came true.

Mss: 603(81), Rask87ˣ(112r)

Readings: [2] skaufhala: so Rask87ˣ, ‘skaufala’ 603    [3] hunds: hans Rask87ˣ;    jafningja: jafningjar Rask87ˣ    [5] forn: so Rask87ˣ, fyrða 603    [6] fyrða: so Rask87ˣ, forn‑ 603

Editions: Kölbing 1876, 242, Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 229, CPB II, 383, Jón Þorkelsson 1922-7, 154, Páll Eggert Ólason 1947, 57.

Notes: [1] því ‘it was for that reason’: Kölbing (1876) takes this as an interrogative (= hví ‘why’), which is possible in later Icelandic (after 1400, see Björn K. Þórólfsson 1925, 46), but less likely in view of the adv.-conj. combination því … að lit. ‘therefore … because’. — [3] jafningja hunds ‘a dog’s equal’: Jafningjar hans (m. nom. pl.) ‘his equals’ (so Rask87ˣ) must be a lectio facilior. See the similar expression (hunds jafningi) in st. 19/4. — [5-6]: Earlier eds (except Páll Eggert Ólason 1947) retain the 603 reading þar [CPB þat] sannadiz fyrða | fornmæli ‘there the old saying of men came true’, which results in two unmetrical lines (l. 5 is hypermetrical and l. 6 is hypometrical). It is not clear why CPB replaces þar ‘there’ with þat ‘that’. — [7-8] oft verðr örgum vant eins á tög ‘the wicked one often lacks one from ten’: Guðbrandur Vigfússon (CPB II, 610) explains this as a proverb: ‘… nineteen is a favourite number in popular tales; a dangerous river has just taken ‘nineteen’ victims, and is waiting for the last; Mount Hecla has had ‘nineteen’ eruptions, and the like’. The ‘wicked one’ most likely refers to Satan here although örgum (nom. argr ‘wicked, cowardly’) could also be dat. pl. Amory (1973, 4) paraphrases this as ‘with cowards there is always one missing out of every ten men’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Björn K. Þórólfsson. 1925. Um íslenskar orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld og breytingar þeirra úr fornmálinu. Reykjavík: Fjelagsprentsmiðjan. Rpt. 1987. Rit um íslenska málfræði 2. Reykjavík: Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands.
3. 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.
4. Jón Þorkelsson [J. Thorkelsson]. 1888. Om digtningen på Island i det 15. og 16. århundrede. Copenhagen: Høst & søns forlag.
5. Kölbing, Eugen. 1876. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Geschichte der romantischen Poesie und Prosa des Mittelalters unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der englishen und nordischen litteratur. Breslau: Koebner.
6. Amory, Frederic. 1973. ‘Skaufalabálkur, the fornaldarsögur, and the European Beast Epic.’ In Second International Saga Conference, Reykjavík 1973. Papers distributed to participants. 12 pp.
7. Páll Eggert Ólason, ed. 1947. Kvæðasafn 1300-1600. Vol. 2 of Einar Ólafur Sveinsson et al., eds. Íslands þúsund ár. 4 vols. Reykjavík: Helgafell.