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

Egill Frag 1III

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Egill Skallagrímsson, Fragment 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. 66.

Egill SkallagrímssonFragment1

Vrǫngu varrar Gungnis
varrar lungs of stunginn.

Vrǫngu … {varrar Gungnis} … varrar lungs … of stunginn.

Awry … {the lips of Gungnir <spear>} [SPEAR-BLADES] … of the wake of the longship … pierced.

Mss: W(105), A(5v) (TGT)

Readings: [1] Vrǫngu: Vrungu A;    varrar: so A, varar W    [2] varrar: so A, varar W

Editions: Skj AI, 60, Skj BI, 53, Skald I, 33, NN §§844C, 2157A; SnE 1848-87, II, 132-3, 415, TGT 1884, 21, 86, 199, TGT 1927, 61, 100.

Context: See Introduction.

Notes: [All]: The metre is dunhent ‘echoing-rhymed’ (cf. SnSt Ht 24). — [All]: It is impossible to give a definitive sense of this couplet, as it probably lacks a nom. subject and a finite verb, hence no connected prose order or translation of the whole couplet has been attempted here. Skald (cf. NN §844C) constructs one but this requires three words to be emended and cannot be considered as more than speculative. It is possible, as Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 199) suggests, that the repeated varrar (or várar) in each ms. is a result of textual corruption. On the other hand, the couplet may employ a deliberate play on words with the same form but different meanings (homonyms), and that is how the lines have been interpreted here. It is also curious that two of the words in this couplet, Gungnis ‘of Gungnir’ and lung ‘longship’, also appear in a couplet by Bragi Boddason (Bragi Frag 4/1-2) cited in the very next section of TGT (1884, 87). — [1] vrǫngu ‘awry’: As Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 199) points out, Óláfr Þórðarson clearly understood this word as the m. or n. dat. sg. (or the adv.) of the adj. (v)rangr ‘wrong, false, twisted, awry’ because he referred to it in his prose text as a nafn (Lat. nomen), a noun or adj. Thus W’s reading has been adopted here rather than A’s vrungu, which would give the 3rd pers. pl. pret. indic. of a hypothetical *vringa (cf. OE wringan ‘wring’). As the prose text of TGT (1884, 87) makes clear shortly after this citation, the use of a word beginning with initial <vr> rather than <r> is an archaism (vinðandin forna, the use of the letter venð <w> in such locations), necessary here to provide correct alliteration in a dróttkvætt line (see also ANG §288). For another example, also using vrangr, see Bragi Þórr 6/1-2 and Note there. — [1, 2] varrar … varrar ‘the lips … of the wake’: Adopting A’s reading, this word, repeated in each line, must be gen. sg. or nom. or acc. pl. of vǫrr f. ‘lip’ or gen. sg. or nom. pl. of vǫrr m. ‘the pull of an oar, the wake created by an oar’. Given that lung ‘longship’ (l. 2) has a nautical sense, the second meaning seems more probable than the first in l. 2. Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 100) suggested that varrar Gungnis ‘the lips of Gungnir’ in l. 1 might be a kenning for the edges of a spear, and that suggestion has been adopted tentatively here. If W’s reading is adopted, Várar might be the gen. sg. of the proper noun Vár, name of a goddess (cf. Gylf, SnE 2005, 29). — [1] Gungnis ‘of Gungnir <spear>’: Óðinn’s spear, made by dwarfs (cf. Skm, SnE 1998, I, 41-2).

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. TGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
  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. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  8. TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
  9. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  10. Internal references
  11. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 2 May 2024)
  12. (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 2 May 2024)
  13. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ 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=113> (accessed 2 May 2024)
  14. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Þórr’s fishing 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 52.
  15. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Fragments 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. 59.
  16. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 24’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1130.
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.