Gamlkan Has 3^VII

Send þú yðvarn anda,
einskepjandi, hreinan
mér, þanns mitt of fœri
munar grand heðan, landa.
Alls megu ekki þollar
án fremja þess hônum
súða viggs, es seggjum
siðabót af því hljótisk.

Send þú mér hreinan anda yðvarn, {einskepjandi landa}, þanns of fœri heðan munar grand mitt. Alls ekki megu {þollar {viggs súða}} fremja þess án hônum, es siðabót hljótisk seggjum af því.

Send your pure spirit to me, {sole creator of lands} [= God], the one which may carry hence my sorrow of mind. {Trees {of the steed of planking}} [SHIP > SEAFARERS] can by no means achieve this without it [lit. him, viz. the Holy Spirit], because moral amendment may proceed for men from it.

Mss: B(12r), 399a-bˣ

Readings: [3] fœri: ‘fę[...]e’ B, ‘ferị’ 399a‑bˣ, ‘fæ(ræ)’(?) BRydberg, ‘fe᷎re’ BFJ    [5] megu: so all others, ‘meg[...]’ B

Editions: Skj AI, 562, Skj BI, 549, Skald I, 266, NN §2926; Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1844, 14, Kempff 1867, 1, Rydberg 1907, 20, Jón Helgason 1935-6, 253, Black 1971, 140, Attwood 1996a, 222.

Notes: [5] án hônum ‘without it [lit. him]’: The reference is to the Holy Spirit (heilagr andi). In MIcel, the prep. án is invariably followed by the gen. Constructions with both acc. and dat. were permissible in ON (see ONP: án, ón). It is possible, as Kempff (1867, 24) suggests, that the aðalhending was not without influence in the choice of case here. — [7] þollar viggs súða ‘trees of the steed of planking [SHIP > SEAFARERS]’: Súð f. (here in gen. pl. súða) is a term for the overlapping planks that form the hull of a clinker-built ship (Jesch 2001a, 139-40). Although the word occurs several times as a heiti for ‘ship’ (see LP: súð), this is its only occurrence as part of a ship-kenning. Jón Helgason (1935-6, 253), presumably influenced by the uniqueness of the kenning and its apparent tautology, objected to Finnur Jónsson’s transcription of B in Skj A: ‘The first word is written suda in the manuscript, and there is a hole over the u. The possibility that what was there was sūda = sunda must thus be considered’. Kock (NN §2926) and Black (1971, 340 and 141) adopt this suggestion and emend to sunda gen. sg. of sund ‘a body of water’, taking the kenning to be þollar viggs sunda ‘trees of the steed of the water’. Although there is indeed a hole in B, it is considerably above and to the left of súða, and does not interfere with the text at this point. It is not conceivable that a nasal stroke, which would be expected to sit very close to the letter and extend over its full width, has been lost here. B’s súða is therefore retained in this edn.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
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. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
7. Attwood, Katrina. 1996a. ‘The Poems of MS AM 757a 4to: An Edition and Contextual Study’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Leeds.
8. Black, Elizabeth L. 1971. ‘Harmsól: an edition’. B. Litt. thesis. University of Oxford.
9. Rydberg, Hugo, ed. 1907. ‘Die geistlichen Drápur und Dróttkvættfragmente des Cod. AM 757 4to.’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Lund. Copenhagen: Møller.
10. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
11. Jón Helgason. 1935-6. ‘Til skjaldedigtningen’. APS 10, 250-64.
12. Kempff, Hjalmar, ed. 1867. Kaniken Gamles ‘Harmsól’ (Sol i Sorgen): isländskt andligt qväde från medeltiden med öfversättning och förklaringar. Uppsala: Edquist & Berglund.
13. Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1844. Fjøgur gømul kvæði. Boðsrit til að hlusta á þá opinberu yfirheyrslu í Bessastaða Skóla þann 22-29 mai 1844. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla. Bessastaðir: Helgi Helgason.