Eyv Hál 3^I

Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, Háleygjatal 3’ 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. 201.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

The helmingr is cited to illustrate a Freyr-kenning (dolgr Belja ‘enemy of Beli’).

This stanza is accepted by scholars as belonging to Hál. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) suggested that the bági jarla ‘adversary of jarls’ who is the subject of the stanza might be Goðgestr (Godgestus in Thormod Torfaeus’s list; see Introduction), but there is no evident connection between his story as told in Hkr (ÍF 26, 57) and the present stanza. — [2-3]: As noted above, it is unknown who the bági ‘adversary’ is, and two possible syntactic construals are possible. (a) The interpretation adopted in this edn is that útrǫst Belja dolgs ‘the outlying tract of the enemy of Beli [= Freyr]’ belongs together, as the object of the sentence, leaving bági jarla ‘adversary of earls’ as the subject (cf. SnE 1998, I, 167). (b) Finnur Jónsson (Hkr 1893-1901, IV; Skj B) points out the possibility of an alternative division into bági dolgs Belja ‘adversary of the enemy of Beli [= Freyr > = Surtr]’ (subject) and útrǫst jarla ‘outlying tract of the jarls’ (object), without reaching a definite decision, but this assumes a somewhat strained word order, and Surtr seems an altogether unlikely adversary for the jarls, given the focus in the rest of Hál on their enemies amongst human beings (mennskir menn).