Svart Skauf 21^VIII

‘Þá varð mier litið         í lág eina,
hvar að háfættr maðr         hljóp kallandi.
Fór með hónum         ferlíki mikið
kolsvart að lit;         kenda eg hunza.

‘Þá varð mier litið í eina lág, hvar að háfættr maðr hljóp kallandi. Mikið ferlíki, kolsvart að lit, fór með hónum; eg kenda hunza.

‘Then I happened to see from a fallen tree where a long-legged man was running shouting. A large monstrous thing, coal-black in colour, ran with him; I recognised the dog.

Mss: 603(82), Rask87ˣ(113v-114r)

Readings: [1] Þá: Þar Rask87ˣ;    varð: so Rask87ˣ, var 603    [3] hvar að: þar Rask87ˣ;    maðr: mann Rask87ˣ    [7] að: á Rask87ˣ    [8] kenda eg hunza: ‘kend eg, hund sä!’ Rask87ˣ

Editions: Kölbing 1876, 244, Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 232, CPB II, 383, Jón Þorkelsson 1922-7, 156-7, Páll Eggert Ólason 1947, 63.

Notes: [1] þá ‘then’: Þar ‘there’ (Rask87ˣ) is an equally plausible reading. — [2] í eina lág ‘from a fallen tree’: Lit. ‘into a fallen tree’. Although í with the acc. case normally means ‘into’ and is used with verbs denoting motion, the usage here is paralleled. Cf. ÍF 6, 10: nú heyrði Gísli í skóginn ‘now Gísli heard from the forest’. See also Konráð Gíslason (1895-7, II, 277: í II.A.1.b). — [3] hvar að ‘where’: I.e. hvar er ‘where’. Að here functions like the rel. particle er (see NS §267 and Björn K. Þórólfsson 1925, 48-9). So also Kölbing (1876) and Jón Þorkelsson (1888; 1922-7). CPB emends to hvar and Páll Eggert Ólason (1947) to hvar er. Þar ‘there’ (Rask87ˣ) is syntactically awkward (‘then I happened to see … there was running’). — [3] maðr (m. nom. sg.) ‘man’: The Rask87ˣ variant mann is a later nom. form from the late C14th (see Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, II, 178, Björn K. Þórólfsson 1925, 27 and Bandle 1956, 256). — [8] hunza ‘the dog’: The scribe of Rask87ˣ clearly misunderstood this word and rendered it as hund sá lit. ‘dog that’ where hund is m. acc. sg. and sá is the demonstrative pron. in the m. nom. sg. Hunzi ‘dog’ is not otherwise attested in Old Norse prose or poetry. It is a derivation (hund-si) with a *-san-suffix; cf. bersi ‘bear’, kramsi, krumsi ‘raven’ etc. See Note to Eil Þdr 2/7^III.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Bandle, Oskar. 1956. Die Sprache der Guðbrandsbiblía. BA 17. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
6. Jón Þorkelsson [J. Thorkelsson]. 1888. Om digtningen på Island i det 15. og 16. århundrede. Copenhagen: Høst & søns forlag.
7. ÍF 6 = Vestfirðinga sǫgur. Ed. Björn K. Þórólfsson and Guðni Jónsson. 1943.
8. Konráð Gíslason. 1895-7. Efterladte skrifter. 2 vols. I: Forelæsninger over oldnordiske skjaldekvad. II: Forelæsninger og videnskablige afhandlinger. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
9. Kölbing, Eugen. 1876. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Geschichte der romantischen Poesie und Prosa des Mittelalters unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der englishen und nordischen litteratur. Breslau: Koebner.
10. Páll Eggert Ólason, ed. 1947. Kvæðasafn 1300-1600. Vol. 2 of Einar Ólafur Sveinsson et al., eds. Íslands þúsund ár. 4 vols. Reykjavík: Helgafell.
11. Internal references
12. Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 77.