Svart Skauf 26^VIII

‘Þar húkta eg,         þó mier ilt þætta,
heldr hundeygður,         og hræddumz dauða.
Hljóp hinn háfætti         fyrir holu munna;
hafði staf stóran;         stakk inn til mín.

‘Þar húkta eg, þó þætta mier ilt, heldr hundeygður, og hræddumz dauða. Hinn háfætti hljóp fyrir munna holu; hafði stóran staf; stakk inn til mín.

‘There I cowered, though I thought it bad for me, rather dog-eyed, and feared death. The long-legged one ran before the mouths of the hole; he had a large stick; he jabbed [it] in at me.

Mss: 603(82), Rask87ˣ(114r-v)

Readings: [2] þætta: þætti Rask87ˣ    [3] hund‑: hvass‑ Rask87ˣ    [4] og: om. Rask87ˣ;    hræddumz: hræddiz Rask87ˣ    [8] stakk: so Rask87ˣ, og stakk 603

Editions: Kölbing 1876, 244, Jón Þorkelsson 1888, 233, CPB II, 383, Jón Þorkelsson 1922-7, 157, Páll Eggert Ólason 1947, 65.

Notes: [2] þætta (1st pers. sg. pret. subj.) ‘I thought’: So Kölbing (1876) and Jón Þorkelsson (1888). The Rask87ˣ variant þætti, if taken as 3rd pers. sg. pret. subj. (but see Note to st. 22/4 above), can be construed impersonally as þó þætti mier ilt ‘though it seemed bad to me’ and is adopted in CPB and by Jón Þorkelsson (1922-7) and Páll Eggert Ólason (1947). — [3] hundeygður ‘dog-eyed’: So Kölbing (1876), CPB and Jón Þorkelsson (1888; 1922-7), but without the excrescent [u] in ‑eygður, which makes the line hypometrical (see Note to st. 13/5). Páll Eggert Ólason (1947) gives hundeygr (see Note to st. 19/3). Hvasseygður ‘keen-eyed’ (Rask87ˣ) is also a possible reading. The cpd hundeygr (with the variant hundeygðr) is found in SvB Lv 3/6^V (Gr 35) and glossed in LP: hundeygr as med skamfulde, luskende öjne ‘with eyes that are ashamed, furtive’. — [8] stakk ‘jabbed’: So Rask87ˣ. Og ‘and’ in the 603 reading (og stakk ‘and jabbed’) is extrametrical, but adopted by all earlier eds. Stakk is 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of the strong verb stinga ‘jab, stab’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. 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.
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. Páll Eggert Ólason, ed. 1947. Kvæðasafn 1300-1600. Vol. 2 of Einar Ólafur Sveinsson et al., eds. Íslands þúsund ár. 4 vols. Reykjavík: Helgafell.
7. Internal references
8. Jonathan Grove (ed.) 2022, ‘Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar 35 (Sveinn á Bakka, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 720.