Eskál Vell 11^I

Hjalmgrápi vann hilmir
harðr (Lopts vinar) barða
(því kom vǫxtr í Vínu
vínheims) fíandr sína.
Ok forsnjallir fellu
fúrs í Þróttar skúrum
(þat fær þjóðar snytri)
þrír jarls synir (tírar).

Harðr hilmir vann fíandr sína barða {hjalmgrápi}; því kom vǫxtr í {Vínu {vínheims {vinar Lopts}}}. Ok þrír forsnjallir synir jarls fellu í {skúrum {fúrs Þróttar}}; þat fær {snytri þjóðar} tírar.

The hardy ruler had his enemies pelted {with helmet-hail} [BATTLE]; therefore, growth came to {the Vína <river> {of the wine-world {of the friend of Loptr <= Loki>}}} [= Óðinn > VAT > POEM]. And three exceedingly brave sons of a jarl fell in {the showers {of the fire of Þróttr <= Óðinn>}} [SWORD > BATTLE]; that brings glory {to the instructor of the people} [RULER = Hákon jarl].

Mss: Kˣ(118r), F(20vb), J1ˣ(71v), 325VIII 1(2vb) (Hkr); 61(8ra), 53(5vb), 54(1ra), Bb(10vb) (ÓT)

Readings: [1] ‑grápi: ‑faldinn 61, ‑greip er 53, ‑gráp er 54, Bb    [2] harðr: so F, 325VIII 1, harð Kˣ, J1ˣ, 61, 53, 54, Bb;    Lopts: so J1ˣ, 325VIII 1, 61, 54, Bb, lopt Kˣ, F, lofs 53    [3] vǫxtr: vestr Bb    [5] Ok: at J1ˣ, 325VIII 1, 61, 53, 54, Bb    [6] Þróttar: Þundar 61, 53, 54, Bb    [7] fær: fór J1ˣ;    þjóðar: þróttar 61, þjóstar 53, 54, Bb;    snytri: snyrti 54, Bb    [8] synir: ‘seynir’ F

Editions: Skj AI, 125, Skj BI, 118-19, Skald I, 67, NN §§399, 1884C, 2240B, 2242, 2513; Hkr 1893-1901, I, 250-1, IV, 69-70, ÍF 26, 219, Hkr 1991, I, 146 (HGráf ch. 15), F 1871, 94; Fms 1, 65; Fms 12, 33, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 66 (ch. 41).

Context: King Haraldr gráfeldr ‘Grey-cloak’ and his brother Guðrøðr advance northwards to Þrándheimr (Trøndelag) with a large army. When Hákon jarl learns of this, he heads south to Mœrr (Sunn- or Nordmøre) with his own army and pillages there. Grjótgarðr, Hákon jarl’s uncle, has been charged with defending the region and calls up an army on the orders of Haraldr and Guðrøðr. The two armies fight and Grjótgarðr is killed.

Notes: [2]: The line is divided into three parts in almost all interpretations. Only Kock (NN §399) avoids the tripartition by conjoining vinar Lopts ‘of the friend of Loptr <= Loki> [= Óðinn]’ and hilmir ‘ruler’, but this sacrifices the determinant of vínheims ‘of the wine-world’ in the intercalary clause (cf. Reichardt 1930, 243-4). Subsequently Kock (NN §2242), following a suggestion of Meissner (Kock and Meissner 1931, I, 9), conjoins harðr ‘hardy’ with vǫxtr ‘growth’ from the intercalary clause. This also avoids the tripartition (cf. Frank 1978, 85), but harðr is semantically better suited to hilmir than vǫxtr. — [2, 3, 4] Vínu vínheims vinar Lopts ‘the Vína <river> of the wine-world of the friend of Loptr <= Loki> [= Óðinn > VAT > POEM]’: Vína is the Northern Dvina river, here standing for ‘river’ in general (LP: 1. Vína; Note to Þul Á 3/1^III). Jón Þorkelsson (1884, 46) resolves the kenning convincingly and is followed by most later eds. This edn, with most others, interprets vínheimr ‘wine-world’ as referring to the vat in which the mead of poetry is stored (LP: vínheimr). Kock’s interpretation (NN §2513) as a hall in which wine is drunk is doubtful, because the kenning would not then mean ‘poem’ (cf. Kreutzer 1977, 108). — [3]: This line lacks a skothending. Various attempts have been made to correct this through emendation. Jón Þorkelsson (1884, 46) suggests sýnisk ‘it appears’ in place of því kom ‘in this way came’, and Kock (NN §1884C) suggests Vixlu instead of Vínu. — [4]: The metre of the line dictates that fíandr be read as disyllabic. — [5] ok ‘and’: The mss offer both ok ‘and’ and at ‘that’. (a) Ok is chosen here, since it is both the reading of the Kringla group mss including the main ms. Kˣ and the reading that yields the most natural syntactic and semantic structure for the stanza as a whole. It produces a conventional statement that the hero of the poem causes it to swell, his great deeds supplying material for praise. (b) The variant at in the Jöfraskinna group mss and the mss of ÓT would introduce a subordinate clause in the second helmingr which is dependent on því in the first helmingr, giving ‘for this reason the poem grew … that the three sons of the jarl fell’; but it would be unusual to make such a claim about defeated enemies. — [5, 8] þrír forsnjallir synir jarls ‘three exceedingly brave sons of a jarl’: One of these is Grjótgarðr, the uncle of Hákon jarl and son of another Hákon; the others are unidentified (see ÍF 28, Ættaskrár V, for a genealogy of the jarls of Hlaðir (Lade)). — [7] snytri þjóðar ‘to the instructor of the people [RULER = Hákon jarl]’: Snytrir ‘instructor’, derived from snotr ‘wise’, must refer to the ruler. The sole other instance of the word is Þjóð Haustl 3/3^III snytrir hapta ‘instructor of the divine powers’, a kenning for Óðinn.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
6. Frank, Roberta. 1978. Old Norse Court Poetry: The Dróttkvætt Stanza. Islandica 42. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
7. Kreutzer, Gert. 1977. Die Dichtungslehre der Skalden: Poetologische Terminologie und Autorenkommentare als Grundlage einer Gattungspoetik. 2nd edn. Hochschulschriften: Literaturwissenschaft 1. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain.
8. Kock, Ernst Albin and Rudolf Meissner, eds. 1931. Skaldisches Lesebuch. 2 vols. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 17-18. Halle: Niemeyer.
9. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
10. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
11. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
12. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
13. Jón Þorkelsson [J. Thorkelsson]. 1884. ‘Bemærkninger til nogle steder i versene i Heimskringla’. Aftryk af oversigt over det kgl. danske videnskabs selskabs forhandlinger 1884. Copenhagen: Luno.
14. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
15. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1930. ‘Beiträge zur Skaldenforschung’. ANF 46, 32-62, 199-258.
16. Internal references
17. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=60> (accessed 25 April 2024)
18. (forthcoming), ‘ Heimskringla, Haralds saga gráfeldar’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=138> (accessed 25 April 2024)
19. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Á heiti 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. 843.
20. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng 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. 435.