Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Magnússdrápa 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 218.
Fúss lét á Ré ræsir
rammþing háit Glamma;
valska rauð fyr víðu
Vestlandi gramr branda.
Ræsir lét fúss {rammþing Glamma} háit á Ré; gramr rauð valska branda fyr víðu Vestlandi.
The ruler, eager, caused {a mighty encounter of Glammi <sea-king>} [BATTLE] to be held at Rügen; the sovereign reddened Frankish blades off broad Vestland.
Mss: Kˣ(512v), 39(16vb), F(40rb), E(8r), J2ˣ(251r) (Hkr); H(7r), H(10r), Hr(7vb), Hr(10ra) (H-Hr); Flat(190vb) (Flat)
Readings: [1] Ré: ‘ræ’ Hr(7vb), Flat; ræsir: ‘hræsir’ H(7r) [2] ramm‑: rym‑ H(10r), Hr(10ra); ‑þing: ‑þings F; háit: so 39, F, H(7r), Hr(10ra), hátt Kˣ, E, J2ˣ, H(10r), Hr(7vb), Flat; Glamma: gamma 39, F, glymja H(10r), Hr(10ra), gamla Flat [3] valska rauð: virðum rautt H(7r), Flat, ‘valska hraunn’ H(10r), Hr(10ra), virðum rauð Hr(7vb); víðu: om. F, riðu Flat [4] Vestlandi: Vindlandi H(7r), Vinlandi Hr(7vb), Flat, veldi Hr(10ra)
Editions: Skj AI, 340, Skj BI, 313, Skald I, 159; Hkr 1893-1901, III, 51, ÍF 28, 46, Hkr 1991, 586 (Mgóð ch. 29), F 1871, 184, E 1916, 26; Fms 6, 55, 75 (Mgóð chs 28, 37), Fms 12, 133; Flat 1860-8, III, 275, Andersson and Gade 2000, 115, 469 (MH); Whaley 1998, 199-201.
Context: In Hkr and the second citation in H-Hr, it is said that the st. refers to a battle between Magnús, the victor of Lyrskovshede (Hlýrskógsheiðr), and Sveinn Úlfsson. They engage fyrir Vestlandi á Ré ‘off Vestland on Rügen’ (Hkr) or fyrir vestan Aren ‘west of Aren’ (H-Hr). After the battle Sveinn flees to Skåne (Skáney) and Magnús returns to Jylland. In Flat and the first citation in H-Hr, the setting is quite different: a chance encounter in which Magnús, returning to Denmark from Wollin (Jóm) before the battle of Lyrskovshede triumphs over a large Viking fleet fyrir Ré á Vestlandi ‘off Rügen in Vestland’ (H) or fyrir Vestland ‘off Vestland’ (Hr).
Notes: [All]: H-Hr represents two textual traditions here. In the first instance, H-Hr (and Flat) copies Mork (Mork has a lacuna here) and in the second instance, H-Hr copies Hkr. — [1] Ré ‘Rügen’: The phrase á Ré suggests that the fighting was on land. The tradition of a sea-battle recorded in Flat and H-Hr (Fms 6, 55) may rest on a false assumption that fyr ... Vestlandi ‘off Vestland’ in ll. 3-4 refers to the fighting rather than to the island of Rügen (see Note to st. 9/4 below). On the other hand, the account of the occasion of the battle in these two sources (above) is, because of the location of Rügen, more plausible than that in Hkr and H-Hr (Fms 6, 75); see Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ÍF 28, 46 n. — [2] háit ‘caused to be held’: Háit is the older, and hátt the younger, form of the n. sg. p. p. from the verb heyja. The disyllabic háit is required by the metre. The use of the verb with the battle-kenning rammþing Glamma ‘a mighty assembly of Glammi’ plays on the legal phrase heyja þing ‘hold an assembly’; there are precedents for this in the work of Sigvatr Þórðarson and others. — [3] valska ‘Frankish’: Or perhaps more broadly ‘southern, foreign’ (see Falk 1914, 40). The variant virðum (m. dat. pl.) ‘men’ would also give good sense: ‘the ruler reddened blades on men’. — [4] Vestlandi ‘Vestland’: This is, judging from LP, a unique record of this p. n. The prep. fyr ‘off, before’ is compatible with the surmise that Vestland is a coastal area, either on the island of Rügen, as assumed in LP, or on the mainland opposite (modern western Pomerania), as assumed by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, index to ÍF 28. The epithet víðr ‘broad’ (here dat. sg. víðu) is somewhat conventional (see LP entry, also for breiðr), but if it has literal significance here and if the battle was fought on land, it would point to Vestland having been on the mainland rather than on the small island of Rügen.
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