Bjbp Jóms 32^I

Þá frák él it illa
œða Hǫlgabrúði;
glumði hagl á hlífum
harða grimt ór norðri,
þar er í ormfrán augu
ýtum skýja grjóti
— því knátti ben blása —
barði hreggi keyrðu.

Þá frák Hǫlgabrúði œða it illa él; harða grimt hagl ór norðri glumði á hlífum, þar er {grjóti skýja}, keyrðu hreggi, barði í ormfrán augu ýtum; því knátti ben blása.

Then I have heard Hǫlgi’s bride [= Þorgerðr] stirred up the terrible blizzard; very cruel hail from the north resounded on shields, where {the gravel of clouds} [HAIL], driven by the storm, beat in the snake-flashing eyes of men; therefore wounds swelled.

Mss: R(54r); 61(20ra), 53(16va), 54(16rb), Bb(26vb) (ÓT)

Readings: [2] œða: œðask all others;    Hǫlga‑: haulda 53, 54, Bb;    ‑brúði: brúðar all others    [3] hlífum: hjálmum all others    [4] harða: harðla 53, Bb, ‘hadla’ 54    [5] þar er: þá er 53    [6] grjóti: gráti Bb    [7] því: þá 54, Bb;    knátti: náði all others

Editions: Skj AII, 7, Skj BII, 7-8, Skald II, 5, NN §178; Fms 11, 172, Fms 12, 245, Jvs 1879, 114-15, 133; Fms 1, 175, Fms 12, 44, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 192 (ch. 90), Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28, 80.

Context: Hákon boards his ship again and rejoins the fray; he incites his troop and tells them that victory is assured. A great storm blows up against the Jómsvíkingar.

Notes: [2] Hǫlgabrúði (f. acc. sg.) ‘Hǫlgi’s bride [= Þorgerðr]’: This is Hákon jarl’s patroness, the giantess Þorgerðr. According to SnE (1998, I, 60), Hǫlgi was the eponymous ruler of Hálogaland (Hålogaland) and Þorgerðr was his daughter (and hence brúðr may have the more general sense ‘woman’ here, cf. LP: brúðr 3); sacrifices were made to both of them. The first element of Hǫlgabrúðr also occurs elsewhere as Hǫrga-, Hǫrða- and Hǫlða- and the second as ‑troll; see further Jvs 1962, 36-7, 51-2; McKinnell (2002); Røthe (2007). The R reading ‑brúði adopted here (as in Skj B and Skald) forms an acc. with inf. construction with (frák ...) œða ‘(I have heard ...) stirred up’, lit. ‘(I have heard ...) to stir up’, so that Hǫlgabrúðr is the agent who raises the storm. The ÓT reading f. gen. sg. -brúðar would qualify él ‘blizzard’ and œðask would be intransitive, hence ‘I have heard the terrible storm of Hǫlgi’s bride raged’. — [5] ormfrán augu ‘the snake-flashing eyes’: The collocation is also found in Sigv ErfÓl 13/7, 8, referring to Óláfr helgi, and in Hundk Lv 1/5, 6^VIII (HjǪ 29). On the topos of the flashing eyes of the warlord, see Marold (1998a). — [7] knátti ben blása ‘wounds swelled’: Knátti, lit. ‘could’, is a pleonastic auxiliary. Blása ‘swell’ is used impersonally (see CVC: blása III), so ben ‘wound(s)’ is acc. and presumably pl. The same construction is assumed in Fms 12, 44, 245 and Skj B, but blása is taken to refer to a noise made by the wounds (also LP: blása 4, where it is the only example). An alternative construal is that the understood subject of knátti is the hail-storm and blása is transitive, with ben as its object, hence ‘it blasted wounds’.

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. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. 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.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
9. Jvs 1879 = Petersens, Carl af, ed. 1879. Jómsvíkinga saga (efter Cod. AM. 510, 4:to) samt Jómsvíkinga drápa. Lund: Gleerup.
10. Jvs 1962 = Blake, N. F., ed. and trans. 1962. The Saga of the Jomsvikings. London etc.: Nelson.
11. Ólafur Halldórsson. 2000a. Danish Kings and the Jomsvikings in the Greatest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason. London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. McKinnell, John. 2002. ‘Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr and Hyndluljóð’. In Simek et al. 2002, 265-90.
13. Røthe, Gunnhild. 2007. ‘Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr: the fylgia of the Háleyjar Family’. SI 57, 33-55.
14. Marold, Edith. 1998a. ‘Die Augen des Herrschers’. In Meier 1998, 7-29.
15. Internal references
16. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
17. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=60> (accessed 25 April 2024)
18. Judith Jesch (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Erfidrápa Óláfs helga 13’ 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. 679.
19. Richard L. Harris (ed.) 2017, ‘Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis 29 (Hundingi konungr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 521.