Arn Þorfdr 14^II

Ýmisst vann sá * unnar,
— írsk fell drótt — þás sótti,
Baldr, eða brezkar aldir
— brann eldr — Skotaveldi.

{Sá* Baldr unnar} vann ýmisst, þás sótti brezkar aldir eða Skotaveldi; írsk drótt fell; eldr brann.

{That Baldr <god> of the sword} [WARRIOR = Þorfinnr] won diverse [triumphs], as he attacked the British people and the realm of the Scots; the Irish troop fell; fire blazed.

Mss: Flat(131vb) (Orkn); 21 6 7 IIˣ(28) (LaufE)

Readings: [1] sá * unnar: ‘sa er unne’ Flat, ‘ott ä sumrum’ 21 6 7 IIˣ    [2] þás sótti (‘þa er soti’): ‘alsötte’ 21 6 7 IIˣ    [3] Baldr: so 21 6 7 IIˣ, Baldrs Flat;    eða: so 21 6 7 IIˣ, ‘edr’ Flat;    brezkar: ‘brattkar’ 21 6 7 IIˣ    [4] brann eldr: ‘bra elldr’ Flat, ‘Biodellz’ 21 6 7 IIˣ;    Skota‑: ‘skeyta’ 21 6 7 IIˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 346, Skj BI, 318-19, Skald I, 161, NN §831; Flat 1860-8, II, 411, Orkn 1913-16, 62, ÍF 34, 59 (ch. 22); Whaley 1998, 246-8.

Context: In Orkn (Flat only), eight years pass after the battle off Rauðabjǫrg, during which Þorfinnr uncomplainingly allows Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason to hold two thirds of the isles. Their summers are spent harrying, sometimes together and sometimes independently. In the text of LaufE in ms. 21 6 7 IIˣ, the helmingr is cited to illustrate ‘biodelldr’ as a gold-kenning (though it is not clear how this works).

Notes: [All]: The text as it stands in Flat is clearly corrupt, and that in 21 6 7 IIˣ is still more so, so that the focus here is on the Flat text. The chief problems are that the verbs unni and brá both require objects but do not both have them, and that Baldrs in isolation makes no sense. Since the problems are so closely interrelated two analyses are presented complete here, both possible but not entirely satisfactory; (a) is the one followed above. (a) Skotaveldi ‘the realm of the Scots’ (l. 4) could grammatically be construed as object to any one of the verbs unni ‘loved’ (l. 1), sótti ‘attacked’ (l. 2) or brá ‘changed, moved quickly’ (l. 4). Sótti Skotaveldi ‘attacked the realm of the Scots’ gives the best meaning, though brá Skotaveldi in the sense ‘ravaged Scotland’ is also conceivable, and is assumed by Finnur Jónsson (LP: bregða) and by Kock (NN §831), who assumes sótti to be intransitive. The co-ordinated noun phrase eða brezkar aldir ‘and the British people’ (l. 3) is here construed with Skotaveldi, as object of sótti (so Finnur Jónsson 1934, 45). That the conj. eða (ms. ‘edr’) precedes brezkar aldir, the first of the co-ordinated phrases, is not a difficulty: cf. the placing of ok Danmǫrk allri ‘and the whole of Denmark’ in Arn Magndr 7/2. Brezkar aldir could alternatively be subject, along with írsk drótt ‘Irish troop’ (l. 3), of fell ‘fell’ (l. 2) (so Skj B; the meaning of brezkr is discussed below). If sótti brezkar aldir eða Skotaveldi ‘he attacked the British people and the realm of the Scots’ is construed together, brá ‘changed’ is left without an object, and brá eldr is also metrically suspect, juxtaposing two vowels at the syllable boundary, so that on two counts emendation to the intransitive brann eldr ‘fire blazed’ is expedient. An original brann could have been ‘corrected’ to brá by someone who mistakenly read the l. brann eldr Skotaveldi as a syntactic unit and found the intransitive brann incompatible with the object Skotaveldi. The problems of the remaining object-less verb unni and the isolated Baldrs are perhaps best solved by Finnur Jónsson’s emendation of ms. ‘sa er unne ... balldrs’ to sá unnar ... Baldr ‘that Baldr of the sword’ (Skj B and 1934, 45). This would be an acceptable warrior-kenning built on the familiar pattern with a god’s name, here Baldr, as base-word, and fortunately the reading Baldr is confirmed by 21 6 7 IIˣ. The determinant unnr m. ‘sword’ is a rare word, which de Vries (AEW) connects with vinna ‘do, perform’ or ‘win’. It is attested in HelgÓl Lv ll. 3-4^IV (C10th) ítrtungur unnar ‘sword’s bright tongues’, i.e. ‘sword-blades’, and possibly in Þorb Lv 2^V (C14th). (b) Under the second analysis the ms. text is preserved but unni is assumed to have the implied object ‘battle’, so that sás unni ... þás sótti means ‘the one who bestowed/loved [battle] when he attacked’ (so Finnbogi Guðmundsson, ÍF 34, 59 n.). Brá in brá eldr Skotaveldi is understood as ‘destroyed’. Two interpretations of ms. balldrs are compatible with this analysis. (i) Finnbogi construes it with eða brezkar aldir and offers the ingenious (though unsubstantiated) conjecture that aldir Baldrs refers to the Norse-Gaelic settlers of western Scotland—Baldr was the most Christ-like figure in Norse paganism and would thus symbolise the mixed religion of these people. (ii) Eldr Baldrs could be an (otherwise unparalleled) variant on the kenning formula ‘Óðinn’s flame’ meaning ‘sword’ (Meissner 157). Hence eldr Baldrs brá Skotaveldi could be construed as a wittily concise reference to ravaging Scotland with fire (eldr) and the sword (eldr Baldrs). — [3] brezkar ‘British’: (a) Bretar and Bretland occur with reference to Celtic peoples, especially those of Wales and Strathclyde. It is difficult to arbitrate between these two main possibilities in this st., and the flanking references to Skotaveldi ‘the realm of the Scots’ and írsk drótt ‘Irish troop’ could favour either ‘Welsh’ as geographically likely (cf. the clear use of Bretland to mean Wales, e.g., in Mork 1928-32, 318 and 321), or to Strathclyde, as favoured by Poole (1987, 292-8). (b) An alternative possibility is that brezkr is used loosely to mean ‘English’ here, since sts 16-18 depict Þorfinnr attacking the English. This might be supported by Anon Liðs 8/7^I where the sword rings out á brezkum brynjum ‘on British/English byrnies’ by the Thames, but Poole (loc. cit.) makes a good case for a Welsh presence there.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
6. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
7. 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.
8. Whaley, Diana, ed. and trans. 1998. The Poetry of Arnórr jarlaskáld: An Edition and Study. Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies 8. Turnhout: Brepols.
9. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
10. Mork 1928-32 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1928-32. Morkinskinna. SUGNL 53. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
11. ÍF 34 = Orkneyinga saga. Ed. Finnbogi Guðmundsson. 1965.
12. Finnur Jónsson. 1934a. Tekstkritiske bemærkninger til skjaldekvad. Det kgl. danske videnskabernes selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 20.2. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard.
13. Poole, Russell. 1987. ‘Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History: Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016’. Speculum 62, 265-98.
14. Orkn 1913-16 = Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1913-16. Orkneyinga saga. SUGNL 40. Copenhagen: Møller.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Orkneyinga saga’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=47> (accessed 25 April 2024)
17. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Jóns saga helga’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=64> (accessed 25 April 2024)
19. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Anonymous Poems, Liðsmannaflokkr 8’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1025.
20. Not published: do not cite ()
21. Not published: do not cite (HelgÓl Lv^IV)
22. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Magnússdrápa 7’ 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. 216.
23. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Harðar saga 18 (Þorbjǫrg, Lausavísur 2)’ 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. 942.
24. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10928> (accessed 25 April 2024)