Glúmr Gráf 4^I

Austrlǫndum fórsk undir
allvaldr, sás gaf skǫldum
— hann fekk gagn at gunni —
gunnhǫrga slǫg mǫrgum.
Slíðrtungur lét syngva
sverðleiks reginn — ferðir
sendi gramr at grundu
gollvarpaða* — snarpar.

Allvaldr, sás gaf mǫrgum skǫldum {slǫg {gunnhǫrga}}, fórsk undir austrlǫndum; hann fekk gagn at gunni. {Reginn {sverðleiks}} lét {snarpar slíðrtungur} syngva; gramr sendi ferðir {gollvarpaða*} at grundu.

The mighty ruler, who gave many poets {strikers {of battle-temples}} [SHIELDS > WEAPONS], subdued eastern lands; he gained success in war. {The god of {sword-play}} [BATTLE > WARRIOR] made {keen scabbard-tongues} [SWORDS] sing; the prince sent troops {of gold-throwers} [GENEROUS MEN] to the ground.

Mss: Kˣ(88r-v), F(15va), J1ˣ(52v), J2ˣ(49v-50r) (Hkr); 61(4va), Bb(5vb), Flat(7va) (ÓT)

Readings: [1] fórsk undir: so J2ˣ, 61, fezk undir Kˣ, ‘forst vndir’ F, ‘forskyndir’ J1ˣ, ‘for skendir’ Bb, ‘forst undar’ Flat    [3] gagn at: gang af Bb    [4] ‑hǫrga: ‘horda’ Flat;    slǫg: lǫg J1ˣ, J2ˣ, ‘skug’ Bb;    mǫrgum: ‘manegum’ J1ˣ    [5] Slíðrtungur: skíðr tungu Bb, síðþungr Flat;    syngva: so F, syngja Kˣ, J1ˣ, J2ˣ, Bb, Flat, slyngja 61    [6] ferðir: firðir J1ˣ, J2ˣ, ferðar 61, Bb, Flat    [7] at: af Bb;    grundu: grunni Bb    [8] goll‑: gunn‑ J1ˣ, J2ˣ;    ‑varpaða*: ‑varpaðar all

Editions: Skj AI, 76, Skj BI, 66, Skald I, 41, NN §§256, 257; Hkr 1893-1901, I, 180-1, IV, 49, ÍF 26, 162-3, Hkr 1991, I, 103 (HákGóð ch. 10), F 1871, 70; Fms 1, 30, Fms 12, 27, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 29 (ch. 19), Flat 1860-8, I, 54 .

Context: The Eiríkssynir (or Gunnhildarsynir) have left Orkney for the court of Haraldr Gormsson, king of Denmark, who fosters the young Haraldr gráfeldr. Some of the Eiríkssynir undertake raids in the Baltic.

Notes: [All]: The reference to Gráf 4 in the Note to Anon Líkn 16/7^VII is to the stanza now numbered 5 below. — [All]: Despite a shared reference to the Baltic region, there is a poor fit between the stanza and its prose context, since its focus on an individual contrasts with the account in the prose of the Eiríkssynir as a group. Moreover, that individual is clearly a king (allvaldr ‘mighty ruler’, l. 2), whereas Haraldr, according to Hkr, is a young prince at the time, not even the eldest of the brothers (since his brother Gamli is still alive), and under the patronage of the Danish king. This discrepancy could be explained by the role of the stanza within a drápa composed retrospectively about Haraldr once he has achieved kingly status, but the stanza does not identify him specifically. — [1] austrlǫndum ‘eastern lands’: Austrlǫnd is commonly used of the Baltic regions. — [1] fórsk undir ‘subdued’: Farask normally means ‘perish, die’ (LP: fara B), but this cannot be the sense here. (a) Kock (NN §256) takes austrlǫndum as a dat. object of farask undir which he translates as lägga under sig ‘subdue’, citing the parallel hann fersk foldu grœnni undir ‘he subdues the green earth’ (GunnLeif Merl I 25^VIII); this is adopted here, as also by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (ÍF 26). (b) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) reads fórsk undir slǫg, translating vovede sig under våbnene ‘risked his life against weapons’, and takes austrlǫndum as a locative dat. i de østlige lande ‘in the eastern lands’. Such a use of the dat. is possible, but restricted even in poetry (NS §117). — [2, 4] gaf mǫrgum skǫldum slǫg gunnhǫrga ‘gave many poets strikers of battle-temples [SHIELDS > WEAPONS]’: Weapons were among the conventional rewards given to poets for their poetry; see, e.g., Hfr Lv 11^V (Hallfr 14), celebrating the gift of a sword from Óláfr Tryggvason. The kenning is unusual. Gunnhǫrg(a) ‘battle-temples’ belongs to a pattern well attested among shield-kennings (Meissner 170-1), but slǫg ‘strikers’ is the pl. of slag n., which is itself a heiti for a weapon, so that the tvíkent kenning ‘strikers of battle-temples’ assumed here appears somewhat overdetermined. The translation here, however, follows Reichardt’s suggestion (1928, 178) that slǫg gunnhǫrga functions effectively as a kenning, exploiting the relation of slǫg with slá ‘to strike’ to mean ‘weapons which strike shields’. (b) Kock (NN §256) takes gunnhǫrga ‘shields’ as acc. pl. rather than gen. pl., and hence a joint object, with slǫg ‘swords’, of gaf ‘gave’, in an unusual use of asyndetic parataxis (i.e. omission of a conj.). This is questioned by Reichardt (1928, 178). (c) Finnur Jónsson in Skj B takes slǫg ‘weapons’ as the object of fórsk undir ‘risked his life against’ (see Note to l. 1 fórsk undir), and construes gunnhǫrga alone as a shield-kenning. — [5] slíðrtungur ‘scabbard-tongues [SWORDS]’: The word for scabbard is normally pl. slíðrar, and this appears in RvHbreiðm Hl 18/5^III tunga slíðra ‘tongue of the scabbard [SWORD]’. The sg. slíðr seen in the present kenning itself means a ‘sliver’, two of which could be bound together to make a scabbard; use of the sg. is paralleled in Mark Lv 2/4^III slíðráll ‘scabbard-eel [SWORD]’. — [6] reginn ‘the god’: Reginn appears as the base-word of a warrior-kenning here and occasionally elsewhere, though its identity is uncertain. It seems to be a m. sg. counterpart to n. pl. regin ‘gods’, but association with the dwarf-name Reginn (see Note to Hhárf Snædr 1/7) is also possible. See further LP: reginn (where Finnur Jónsson suggests bevæger ‘mover’), Meissner 264 and Note to Þjóð Haustl 12/6^III. — [8] gollvarpaða* ‘of gold-throwers [GENEROUS MEN]’: (a) This edn tentatively follows Konráð Gíslason (1866b, 190-4) and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; LP: gollvǫrpuðr) in interpreting gollvǫrpuðr as a kenning for a generous man, ‘one who throws, distributes gold’ (cf. Meissner 323), and construing it, with emendation of ‑varpaðar to gen. pl. ‑varpaða, as part of the phrase ferðir gollvarpaða ‘troops of gold-distributors’. The ‑ar in the mss could perhaps have arisen by anticipation of the following snarpar. (b) Kock (NN §257) disputes this interpretation on the grounds that a victorious king would be described as a generous ‘gold-distributor’, but hardly his victims, and avoids emendation by interpreting gollvarpaðar as a f. acc. pl. adj., lit. ‘gold-thrown’, describing the ferðir ‘troops’ to whom gold is distributed. This solution is adopted in ÍF 26 (where snarpar ‘keen’ is also taken to modify ferðir). However, emendation seems preferable since the concept of ‘throwing’, i.e. distributing gold is so firmly associated with the kenning type of the generous man, while it is doubtful whether a term for ‘thrown’ could mean ‘endowed with’ or ‘having received’ in a cpd adj.

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. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
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. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
7. 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.
8. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
9. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
10. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
11. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
12. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
13. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
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. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
16. Konráð Gíslason. 1866b. ‘Strøbemærkninger til oldnordiske digte’. ÅNOH, 188-97.
17. Internal references
18. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ 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=4> (accessed 26 April 2024)
19. (forthcoming), ‘ Heimskringla, Hákonar saga góða’ 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=130> (accessed 26 April 2024)
20. Diana Whaley 2012, ‘(Biography of) Óláfr Tryggvason’ 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. 383.
21. George S. Tate (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Líknarbraut 16’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 247-8.
22. Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘ Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1001. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1347> (accessed 26 April 2024)
23. Alison Finlay (ed.) 2012, ‘Glúmr Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa 4’ 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. 252.
24. Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 93 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 25)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 64.
25. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2022, ‘Hallfreðar saga 14 (Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson, Lausavísur 11)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 890.
26. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Haraldr hárfagri Hálfdanarson, Snæfríðardrápa 1’ 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. 68.
27. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Haustlǫng 12’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 449.