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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ESk Øxfl 4III

Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Øxarflokkr 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. 144.

Einarr SkúlasonØxarflokkr
345

Nýt buðumk (Njarðar dóttur)
(nálægt vas þat -skála)
(vel of hrósak því) vísa
vǫrn (sævar ǫl-) (barni).

Nýt buðumk vísa vǫrn; þat vas nálægt ǫlskála sævar; of hrósak {því barni {dóttur Njarðar}} vel.

The useful one offered me secure protection; that was close to the ale-hall by the sea; I truly praise {that child {of Njǫrðr’s <god’s> daughter}} [= Freyja > = Hnoss (hnoss ‘treasure’)].

Mss: R(28r-v), Tˣ(29v), W(73), U(30v) (SnE)

Readings: [1] Nýt: Nýtt W, U;    buðumk: buðusk W    [2] skála: stála U

Editions: Skj AI, 478, Skj BI, 450, Skald I, 221, NN §§2057B, 2509, 2902F; SnE 1848-87, I, 348-9, II, 320, III, 57, SnE 1931, 126, SnE 1998, I, 44.

Context: Dóttir Njarðar ‘Njǫrðr’s daughter’ is given in Skm as a kenning for the goddess Freyja.

Notes: [All]: It is tempting to connect the helmingr with the events of 1155 described in Einarr’s Ingadrápa (ESk Ingdr 2-4II), when King Sigurðr munnr ‘Mouth’ Haraldsson was attacked and killed while drinking in the ale-house of Sigríðr sæta ‘Grass-widow’ near the bay of Bergen, Norway. Einarr was an eyewitness to that attack (see ÍF 24, 231-6, ÍF 28, 340-1, ÍF 29, 336-7 and the map in ÍF 29, 324). — [All]: The word order of this stanza is very convoluted and the present edn attempts to make sense of the text without resorting to emendation. — [All]: This helmingr follows st. 3 above, and it is thus implicitly attributed to Einarr: Ok enn svá ‘And again thus’ (see Note to st. 3 [All]). — [1] nýt (f. nom. sg.) ‘the useful one’: Taken as an adj. (f. nom. sg.) here, which functions as the subject and refers to an understood hnoss (f. nom. sg.) ‘treasure’ (i.e. the weapon). Skj B connects it with øx ‘axe’ (emended from ǫl ‘ale’, l. 4). Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 365) construes it with vǫrn ‘protection’ (l. 4), which he takes as nom. sg. Skald reads nýtt (with W, U), which here can only be n. nom. sg. and a qualifier for bál ‘fire’ (emended from ǫl, l. 4). — [1] buðumk (3rd pers. sg. pret. indic.) ‘offered me’: So all earlier eds. The verb is formally 3rd pers. pl. but used for 3rd pers. sg. with suffixed pron.; see ANG §465.3. Faulkes (SnE 1998, II, 245: bjóða) treats this as the 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. in a passive construction with vǫrn ‘protection’ (l. 4) as the subject (‘protection was offered to me’). — [2] -skála ‘-hall’: Kock (Skald and NN §2057B) adopts the U reading but emends stála n. gen. pl. ‘of steels, swords’ to stáli n. dat. sg. and reads þat vas nálægt stáli translated as vid stålet var det anbrakt tätt ‘near the steel that was placed closely’ (referring to inlaid gold; see his emendation in l. 4). — [3]: For this line, see also Kolli Ingdr 5/3II. — [3-4] vísa vǫrn ‘secure protection’: So Skj B. Both Skald and Faulkes construe vísa as the noun vísa (m. gen. sg.) ‘of the ruler’ qualifying vǫrn ‘protection of the ruler’ (see NN §§2057B, 2509, 2902F, SnE 1998, II, 430; but see Kuhn 1936b, 148 n. 1). — [4] ǫl-; sævar ‘ale-; by the sea’: In the present edn, ǫl ‘ale’ (so all mss) is taken as the first element in the cpd ǫlskála ‘ale-hall’ (tmesis, see st. 5/3 below), and sævar ‘by the sea’ as a gen. of place. Skj B also construes sævar with skála as a gen. of place, but Finnur Jónsson emends ǫl ‘ale’ to øx ‘axe’ and reads nýt øx buðumk vísa vǫrn ‘the splendid axe offered me secure protection’, creating an unprecedented four-part even line. Kock (NN §2057B) emends ǫl to bál ‘fire’ and construes a gold-kenning bál sævar ‘fire of the sea’, which refers to the gold inlaid in the weapon (see Note to l. 2 above). Both readings are unmetrical (the nominal syllable in position 4 must be short) and not supported by the ms. witnesses. Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 44, 186) emends ǫl to ǫll (f. nom. sg.) ‘all’ which he takes as an adj. qualifying vǫrn (ǫll nýt vǫrn vísa ‘all the ruler’s helpful protection’). That construction again creates an unprecedented four-part even line (l. 4).

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. 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.
  7. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
  8. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
  9. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  10. ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum; Fagrskinna—Nóregs konungatal. Ed. Bjarni Einarsson. 1985.
  11. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1936b. ‘Zu Ernst Albin Kocks Notationes Norrœnæ: Kritik der §§2501-10’. BGDSL 60, 133-60.
  12. ÍF 23-4 = Morkinskinna. Ed. Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson. 2009.
  13. Internal references
  14. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  15. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Ingadrápa 2’ 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. 563-4.
  16. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Kolli inn prúði, Ingadrápa 5’ 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, p. 532.
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