Anon (Vǫls) 3^VIII (Vǫls 23)

Sigurðr Grana         sverði keyrði;
eldr sloknaði         fyr öðlingi.
Logi allr lægðiz         fyr lofgjörnum;
bliku reiði,         er Reginn átti.

Sigurðr keyrði Grana sverði; eldr sloknaði fyr öðlingi. Allr logi lægðiz fyr lofgjörnum; reiði bliku, er Reginn átti.

Sigurðr drove Grani on with his sword; the fire was extinguished before the prince. All flame died down before the one eager for praise; the harness, which Reginn had owned, flashed.

Mss: 1824b(32r) (Vǫls)

Readings: [7] reiði: reið 1824b

Editions: ; FSN I, 185-6, Vǫls 1906-8, 67, FSGJ I, 176, Vǫls 1965, 49 (Vǫls ch. 29); NK 322, ÍF Edd. II, 322.

Context: This stanza follows immediately after Vǫls 2 without further introduction and is st. 23 in the complete Vǫls.

Notes: [All]: In Vǫls Sigurðr is the son of Sigmundr, member of the Volsung family and a descendant of Óðinn, but he is likely to have had a prior legendary existence as a hero figure, independent of the saga’s presentation of Volsung family history, as witnessed by a number of the poems of the Poetic Edda that deal with his life-history and by C13th Middle High German poems, including the Nibelungenlied (cf. Vǫls 1965, ix-xi). — [1] Grana ‘Grani’: The name of Sigurðr’s horse, cf. Anon Þul Hesta 1/8^III, Anon Kálfv 4/8^III and Note. The name probably means ‘whiskered upper lip’ (cf. AEW: grani). According to Vǫls ch. 13, Sigurðr is led to choose Grani over other horses by an Odinic figure, who tells him Grani had been sired by the god’s own horse, Sleipnir. — [2] sverði ‘with his sword’: The prose text of Vǫls says that Sigurðr urged Grani on with golden spurs (gullspori). According to Vǫls ch. 15, Sigurðr’s sword Gramr was forged from pieces of his father Sigmundr’s sword by the smith Reginn (see Note to l. 8 below). — [6] lofgjörnum ‘the one eager for praise’: The cpd adj. lofgjarn is a hap. leg. in Old Norse but, interestingly in this heroic context, the Old English cognate occurs in sup. form lofgeornost ‘most eager for praise’ (l. 3182b) in a famous passage at the end of the poem Beowulf, in which the poet concludes his epic by summing up the hero Beowulf’s character (ll. 3180-2). Some scholars (cf. Beowulf 2008, 271-2) have claimed that this term is pejorative or at least equivocal in a Christian context; however, the present usage supports the contrary view, that the adj. is a term of praise. — [7] reiði ‘the harness’: An emendation, adopted by all eds, from ms. reið ‘rode’, 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of ríða ‘ride’ or reið f. ‘carriage’. The noun reiði often refers to the tackle or rigging of a ship (cf. Sturl Hryn 6/2^II). Here the word must be pl. to agree with the pl. verb bliku ‘flashed’. — [8] Reginn: Reginn, the son of Hreiðmarr, was Sigurðr’s foster-father and a smith, whose brother, Fáfnir, in the form of a dragon, guarded a hoard of treasure. After Sigurðr had killed the dragon and stolen its hoard, he realised that Reginn intended treachery towards him and he killed him too.

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
4. 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.
5. Beowulf 2008 = Fulk, Robert D., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, eds. 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 4th rev. edn of Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Vǫls 1965 = Finch, R. G., ed. and trans. 1965. The Saga of the Volsungs. London: Nelson.
8. Vǫls 1906-8 = Olsen, Magnus, ed. 1906-8. Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar. SUGNL 36. Copenhagen: Møller.
9. Vǫls = Vǫlsunga saga.
10. Internal references
11. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Kálfsvísa 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 668.
12. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Hesta heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 935.
13. Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir (ed.) 2009, ‘Sturla Þórðarson, Hrynhenda 6’ 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, pp. 682-3.
14. Not published: do not cite ()
15. 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.