Anon (Vǫls) 2^VIII (Vǫls 22)

Eldr nam at æsaz         en jörð at skjálfa
ok hár logi         við himni gnæfa.
Fár treystiz þar         fylkis rekka
eld at ríða         né yfir stíga.

Eldr nam at æsaz en jörð at skjálfa ok hár logi gnæfa við himni. Fár rekka fylkis treystiz þar at ríða eld né stíga yfir.

Fire raged and earth shook and the tall flame rose up to the sky. Few of the warriors of the prince there dared to ride through the fire nor step across it.

Mss: 1824b(32r) (Vǫls)

Readings: [1] Eldr: ‘[…]lldr’ 1824b;    nam: man 1824b

Editions: ; FSN I, 185, Vǫls 1906-8, 67, FSGJ I, 176, Vǫls 1965, 49 (Vǫls ch. 29); NK 322, ÍF Edd. II, 322.

Context: This stanza tells how the heroes Gunnarr and Sigurðr attempt to reach the former valkyrie Brynhildr through a barrier of flames surrounding her hall in order to woo her. Gunnarr first tries to ride through the flames on Sigurðr’s horse, Grani, but the horse refuses. Sigurðr then exchanges shapes with Gunnarr, rides successfully through the flames, and woos Brynhildr in the guise of Gunnarr, having apparently forgotten, due to the influence of a magical potion, that he had become betrothed to her previously in his own person. Stanzas 2 and 3 describe the power of the flames and Sigurðr’s successful penetration of them riding Grani. Stanza 2 is introduced with the words svá er kveðit ‘so it is told’.

Notes: [All]: Although the poem from which Vǫls 2 and 3 come is not known, it must have described the wooing of Brynhildr and Sigurðr’s successful penetration of the barrier of flames surrounding her hall, with its complicated consequences. Chapter 29 of Vǫls comes within that section of the saga (chs 24-31) that corresponds to the poetry that must have been in a large lacuna in the Codex Regius ms. between the end of Sigrdr and the beginning of Brot. — [1-4]: These lines are reminiscent of other poetic descriptions of cosmic disturbances caused by the movements of gods or heroes; cf. Þry 21/5-8, Þjóð Haustl 15^III. — [1] nam at æsaz ‘raged’: The ms. has man at æsaz, with man from muna, an auxiliary and modal verb used to express the future tense. This does not make sense in context, and all previous eds have assumed the copyist transposed the two consonants of nam, 3rd pers. sg. pret. of nema ‘begin’, frequently used, as here, as a pleonastic auxiliary with the inf. of another verb to indicate pret. tense. Nam is also to be understood as a pleonastic auxiliary with skjálfa (l. 2) and gnæfa (l. 4).

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
4. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
5. Vǫls 1965 = Finch, R. G., ed. and trans. 1965. The Saga of the Volsungs. London: Nelson.
6. Vǫls 1906-8 = Olsen, Magnus, ed. 1906-8. Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar. SUGNL 36. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Vǫls = Vǫlsunga saga.
8. Internal references
9. Not published: do not cite ()
10. Not published: do not cite ()
11. Not published: do not cite ()
12. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng 15’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 455.
13. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Vǫlsunga saga 22 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Vǫlsunga saga 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 793.