Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Bragi Troll 1III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, An exchange of verses between Bragi and a troll-woman 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. 64.

Bragi inn gamli BoddasonAn exchange of verses between Bragi and a troll-woman1

text and translation

Skald kalla mik,
skapsmið Viðurs,
Gauts gjafrǫtuð,
grepp óhneppan,
Yggs ǫlbera,
óðs skap-Móða,
hagsmið bragar.
Hvats skald nema þat?

Kalla mik skald, {{Viðurs skap}smið}, {{Gauts gjaf}rǫtuð}, óhneppan grepp, {{Yggs ǫl}bera}, {skap-Móða óðs}, {hagsmið bragar}. Hvats skald nema þat?
 
‘They call me poet, smith of Viðurr’s <= Óðinn’s> mind [(lit. ‘Viðurr’s mind-smith’) POETRY > POET], getter of Gautr’s <= Óðinn’s> gift [(lit. ‘Gautr’s gift-getter’) POETRY > POET], unscanty poet, server of Yggr’s <= Óðinn’s> ale [(lit. ‘Yggr’s ale-server’) POETRY > POET], creating-Móði <god> of poetry [POET], skilled smith of poetry [POET]. What’s a poet if not that?

notes and context

See Introduction above and Context to Anon (SnE) 9, to which this stanza is the riposte. In R and C (which have the troll-woman’s stanza in whole or in part), this one follows immediately upon hers, with the introductory prose, Hann svarar svá ‘He answers thus’. All mss that record this stanza preface it with some version of the prose account of Bragi’s encounter with the troll-woman, as he drove through a forest late one evening (for full prose text, see Context to Anon (SnE) 9).

readings

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

editions and texts

Skj: Bragi enn gamli, 3. Lausavísur 2: AI, 5, BI, 5, Skald I, 3, NN §1005; SnE 1848-87, I, 466-7, II, 339, 447, 590, III, 95, SnE 1931, 165, SnE 1998, I, 83-4.

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Stanza/chapter/text segment

Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.

Information tab

Interactive tab

The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.

Full text tab

This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.

Chapter/text segment

This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.