Bjbp Jóms 37^I

Nam eldbroti Yggjar
ýgr fyr borð at stíga;
út bar hann af húfum
hraustr Goll-Búi kistur.
Ok optliga eptir
óblauðir þar síðan
kneigu lýðir líta
langan orm á hringum.

{Ýgr {Yggjar eld}broti} nam at stíga fyr borð; hann, hraustr Goll-Búi, bar út kistur af húfum. Ok optliga síðan eptir kneigu óblauðir lýðir þar líta langan orm á hringum.

{The fierce breaker {of the flame of Yggr <= Óðinn>}} [(lit. ‘flame-breaker of Yggr’) SWORD > WARRIOR = Búi] stepped overboard; he, bold Gull-Búi (‘Gold-Búi’), carried out chests from the hull. And often since then dauntless men have been able to see there a long serpent on the rings.

Mss: R(54r)

Readings: [4] Búi kistur: ‘b[...]’ R, ‘bvi kist(vr)’(?) RCP, ‑Búi kistur RFJ

Editions: Skj AII, 8, Skj BII, 8, Skald II, 5; Fms 11, 173, Fms 12, 246, Jvs 1879, 116-17.

Notes: [1, 2] nam at stíga ‘stepped’: Nam, lit. ‘took, started’, is a pleonastic auxiliary here. — [3] húfum ‘the hull’: Lit. ‘hulls’. The pl. is unusual, since húfr ‘hull’ is normally sg. unless more than one ship is referred to. The sense ‘strake’ is possible in ON and certain in later Icel., however (Jesch 2001a, 143-4), and húfum here may refer collectively to the strakes or planking comprising the hull. — [4] Goll-Búi ‘Gull-Búi (“Gold-Búi”)’: See Note to st. 26/2. — [8] langan orm á hringum ‘a long serpent on the rings’: This draws on the tradition that gold-hoards are protected by dragons or serpents, and perhaps specifically on the legend of the Rhine-gold, guarded by Fáfnir; see Guðrún Nordal (2001, 331-2). It is conceivable that the dragon is to be understood as a man – Búi – who has turned himself into a dragon in order to guard the hoard, as Fáfnir did (e.g. SnE 1998, I, 46).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Guðrún Nordal. 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press.
5. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Jvs 1879 = Petersens, Carl af, ed. 1879. Jómsvíkinga saga (efter Cod. AM. 510, 4:to) samt Jómsvíkinga drápa. Lund: Gleerup.