Bragi Rdr 4^III

Flaut of set við sveita
sóknar alfs á golfi
hræva dǫgg, þars hǫggnar
hendr sem fœtr of kenndu.
Fell í blóði blandinn
brunn ǫlskakki — runna
þats á Leifa landa
laufi fátt — at haufði.

{Dǫgg hræva} flaut of set við sveita {alfs sóknar} á golfi, þars of kenndu hǫggnar hendr sem fœtr. {Ǫlskakki} fell at haufði í brunn blandinn blóði; þats fátt á {laufi {runna {landa Leifa}}}.

{Dew of corpses} [BLOOD] flowed over the bench together with the blood {of the elf of attack} [WARRIOR = Jǫrmunrekkr] on the floor, where people recognised hewn arms and legs. {The ale-dispenser} [RULER = Jǫrmunrekkr] fell head-first into a well mixed with blood; that is painted on {the leaf {of the trees {of the lands of Leifi <sea-king>}}} [SEA > SHIPS > SHIELD].

Mss: R(30v), Tˣ(32r), C(2r) (SnE)

Readings: [1] set: so all others, sétt R;    við: með Tˣ, C    [2] sóknar: sókna Tˣ;    alfs: so all others, afls R    [3] þars (‘þar er’): so C, of R, Tˣ    [4] sem: ok C;    kenndu: kenndusk C    [5] blandinn: brunninn R, brunnin Tˣ, blandin C    [6] ǫlskakki: ‘vaulspaci’ Tˣ, ‘aulskali’ C    [7] þats (‘þat er’): þann C    [8] laufi: ‘laufdi’ C;    fátt: fat Tˣ;    at: á C;    haufði (‘hꜹfþi’): hǫfði Tˣ, C

Editions: Skj AI, 1-2, Skj BI, 1, Skald I, 1, NN §§ 1003, 2205A, 2985A; SnE 1848-87, I, 372-3, II, 576, III, 59-60, SnE 1931, 134, SnE 1998, I, 51.

Context: This stanza follows immediately upon Rdr 3 in three mss of SnE, R, Tˣ and C.

Notes: [1, 2] of set … á golfi ‘over the bench … on the floor’: The words set and golf denote two distinct parts of the early Scandinavian hall. Set was the raised area along the walls, where benches were set up for people to sit on and cleared at night for sleeping, whereas the golf was the central part of the hall floor, around the hearth. Bragi seems to imply that Hamðir and Sǫrli attacked Jǫrmunrekkr on the set (where he may have been asleep or drunk), and threw his limbs onto the golf where everyone could see them (cf. Hamð 24/7-10 and Saxo 2005, I, 8, 10, 14, pp. 552-5). Skj B and Skald emend all mss’ á golfi to í golfi, but this is not necessary to get good sense. — [4] of kenndu ‘people recognised’: This is the reading of R, Tˣ, which has been adopted by Kock (Skald and NN §2205A), Dronke (1969, 205) and Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 51). Ms. C’s m. v. form 3rd pers. pret. pl. kenndusk ‘were recognised’ is also possible, giving the sense þars hǫggnar hendr sem fœtr of kenndusk ‘where hewn arms and legs were recognised’ (so Skj B; Genzmer 1926, 132; Vogt 1930b, 21). — [5] blandinn (m. acc. sg.) ‘mixed, mingled’: It is necessary to emend (based on C’s blandin) to provide grammatical agreement with brunn m. acc. sg. ‘well’ in l. 6. — [6] ǫlskakki ‘the ale-dispenser [RULER = Jǫrmunrekkr]’: This hap. leg. cpd noun, which derives from R’s form ‘ꜹlskacki’ is understood here as a kenning for a ruler as dispenser of ale to his retinue. Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 378-9) proposes a combination of ǫlskakki with runna (l. 6) as determinant (gen. pl. of runnr ‘bush, tree’), understood here as a half-kenning for ‘man’ or ‘warrior’. Kock (NN §1003) construes runna with at haufði (l. 8) to mean ‘at his warriors’ head’, but this seems an unlikely word order. In the present edn runna is construed with the following shield-kenning (see Note to ll. 7-8 below). Other interpretations of l. 6, such as that of Sophus Bugge (1876, 384) and Skj B, take C’s ‘aulskali’ and emend it to ǫlskála, gen. pl. of ǫlskál ‘ale-cup, drinking vessel’ (cf. Akv 34/1, Hamð 23/2), construing it with í brunn as ‘into the well of ale-cups’, referring to the spilt ale on the hall floor, mingled with blood. — [7-8] á laufi runna landa Leifa ‘on the leaf of the trees of the lands of Leifi <sea-king> [SEA > SHIPS > SHIELD]’: A three-part kenning for the shield, painted (or otherwise decorated) with a picture of the assault upon Jǫrmunrekkr that Bragi replicates in the word-picture of this stanza. Just as in st. 1, where a shield is compared to a leaf (blað), so here the comparison is with a bright, living thing, the leaf of the kind of tree that ‘grows’ in the lands of the sea-king Leifi, namely a Viking-Age ship, on which shields were hung in rows along the gunwale. In this kenning there is a metaphorical connection betweeṇ all three of its elements (cf. Meissner 171; Marold 1993b, 297-8). — [8] at haufði ‘head-first’: Lit. ‘on [his] head’. As the line is likely to contain an aðalhending, though these are irregular in Bragi’s poetry, the form with [au], based on R’s ‘hꜹfþi’, (rather than hǫfði from hǫfuð) is to be preferred, as in Bragi Frag 1/8 (see ANG §98.1).

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. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
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. 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.
7. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
8. Dronke, Ursula, ed. and trans. 1969. The Poetic Edda. I: Heroic Poems. Oxford: Clarendon.
9. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
10. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
11. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
12. Marold, Edith. 1993b. ‘Nýgerving und Nykrat’. In Nielsen et al. 1993, 283-302.
13. Genzmer, Felix. 1926. ‘Der Dichter der Atlakviða’. ANF 42, 97-134.
14. Bugge, Sophus. 1876. ‘Hamðismál: Aus den Vorarbeiten zu einer neuen Ausgabe der sogenannten Sæmundar Edda’. ZDP 7, 377-406.
15. Vogt, Walther Heinrich. 1930b. ‘Bragi’s Schild. Maler und Skalde’. APS 5, 1-28.
16. Internal references
17. 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].
18. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Fragments 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. 54.
19. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 31.
20. Not published: do not cite ()
21. Not published: do not cite ()