Hfr ErfÓl 24^I

Harðgǫrvan lét hjǫrvi
holms verða Týr sverða
vind á víðu sundi
vígþey Heðins meyjar,
áðr an Ormi næði
Eirekr eða hlut meira;
mǫrg óð bitr í blóði
benkneif fyr Ôleifi.

{Týr sverða} lét {vind {meyjar Heðins}}, {vígþey}, verða harðgǫrvan hjǫrvi á víðu sundi holms, áðr an Eirekr næði Ormi eða meira hlut; {mǫrg bitr benkneif} óð í blóði fyr Ôleifi.

{The Týr <god> of swords} [WARRIOR] made {the wind {of the maiden of Heðinn <legendary hero>}} [= Hildr > BATTLE], {war-breeze} [BATTLE], become hard-fought with the sword on the wide sound of the islet, before Eiríkr got Ormr (‘Serpent’) and the better lot; {many a biting wound-hook} [SWORD] waded in blood before Óláfr.

Mss: 53(66rb), 54(67va), 325VIII 2 g(1va), Bb(103rb) (ÓT)

Readings: [1] ‑gǫrvan: ‑gǫrvar 325VIII 2 g, Bb    [2] holms verða: so 54, 325VIII 2 g, Bb, holmsverða 53    [3] sundi: ‘syndi’ Bb    [4] ‑þey: ‑hey Bb    [8] ben‑: bein‑ 54, Bb, ‘b[…]n’ 325VIII 2 g

Editions: Skj AI, 163, Skj BI, 154, Skald I, 83-4, NN §§479, 1855, 3057; SHI 3, 11-12, ÓT 1958-2000, II, 294-5 (ch. 256).

Context: The battle of Svǫlðr is famous both for the defence of Óláfr and his men and for Eiríkr’s mighty attack.

Notes: [1-4]: There seems to be an excess of kenning elements, and the solution adopted here, as in other eds, is to assume that vígþey ‘war-breeze’ or ‘thawing wind of war’ stands in apposition to a battle-kenning, either as in the Text above (and NN §479), or as in Skj B: Týr meyjar Heðins lét sverða vind, vígþey, verða ... ‘the Týr of the maiden of Heðinn [= Hildr (hildr ‘battle’) > WARRIOR] made the wind of swords, war-breeze, become ...’. Skj B’s interpretation is more distant from the word order of the stanza than is Kock’s in NN. — [2, 3] á víðu sundi holms ‘on the wide sound of the islet’: The vagueness of this, coupled with the fact that Svǫlðr is described both as a body of water and as an island in the other sources (Baetke 1951, 65-99), makes it impossible to know which sund ‘sound, channel’ and holmr ‘islet’ are referred to. Despite this, Finnur Jónsson in Skj B (as also Kock in Skald) capitalises Holms, and in LP: holmr 4 explains Holms sund as referring to the sound of the island of Svǫlðr. — [3, 4] vind meyjar Heðins ‘the wind of the maiden of Heðinn <legendary hero> [= Hildr > BATTLE]’: ‘The maiden of Heðinn’ is clearly Hildr, the valkyrie taken as war-trophy and wife by Heðinn Hjarrandason, hero of the Hjaðningavíg (‘battle of Heðinn’s men’, SnE 1998, I, 72). Like other terms such as gunnr (see LP: Gunnr), Hildr has a twofold function: as a proper name for a valkyrie and as a common noun meaning ‘battle’. The present edn assumes a reference to a valkyrie here; Hildr’s ‘wind’ is then ‘battle’. The Skj B interpretation of ll. 1-4 (see Note above) prefers the common noun hildr, arrived at by ofljóst, as also in st. 17/3-4 above. See further LP: 2. Heðinn, 1. hildr; Meissner 201-2, 273. — [4] vígþey ‘war-breeze [BATTLE]’: Although both the referent and the determinant mean ‘battle’, something usually avoided, this kenning fits known patterns (Meissner 182, 186). — [5] áðr an ‘before’: Skj B takes this as a subordinate clause beginning a new sentence, rather than dependent on the first helmingr, and mǫrg benkneif óð ‘many a wound-hook [SWORD] waded’ as the main clause rather than intercalated. However, subordinate clauses do not normally precede main clauses (Kuhn 1983, 190; and on this stanza see Kock, NN §3057). — [5] Ormi ‘Ormr (“Serpent”)’: See Note to st. 10/1. — [6] meira hlut ‘the better lot’: Hlutr m. is literally ‘lot’, a token in sortilege, as well as ‘share, part’, but in phrases such as lægri hlutr ‘worse (lit. ‘lower’) lot’ or minni hlutr ‘lesser lot’ it describes the comparative position of two competing parties. Perhaps, as Ohlmarks suggests (1958, 455), the skald’s desire to play down his hero’s defeat influenced a phrasing which attributes Eiríkr’s victory to the workings of chance. — [8] benkneif ‘wound-hook [SWORD]’: Kneif f. ‘hook, claw, pincer’ (?), probably related to knífr ‘knife’ (ÍO: kneif), is well-attested in the modern language but rare in OIcel. It occurs as a byname in Ldn (ÍF 1, 51, 340-3), where it is spelt variously kneif and (the younger form) hneif, and as a variant reading in GSúrs Lv 27/5^V (Gísl 30). Sword-kennings based on words for tools are fairly common, e.g. bengrefill ‘wound-hoe’ Egill Hfl 8/3^V (Eg 41), and see Meissner 156. LP: benkneif suggests sårkniv(?), spyd ‘wound-knife(?), spear’. — [8] fyr Ôleifi ‘before Óláfr’: The usual sense of fyr(ir), ‘before, in the presence of’, is assumed here (so also Skj B); battle similarly rages fyr skylja (‘before the king’) in st. 12/6-7. Alternatively, fyr(ir) + dat. can express disadvantage (e.g. taka fé fyrir öðrum ‘to take property from another/others’, CVC: fyrir C. III; NN §3057), and fyr Ôleifi could be taken with ll. 5-6, referring to the seizure of Ormr despite Óláfr’s defence (so Skald).

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. 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. 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.
6. 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.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
9. ÍF 1 (parts 1 and 2) = Íslendingabók; Landnámabók. Ed. Jakob Benediktsson. 1968. Rpt. as one volume 1986.
10. Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1983. Das Dróttkvætt. Heidelberg: Winter.
11. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
13. SHI = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1828-46. Scripta historica islandorum de rebus gestis veterum borealium, latine reddita et apparatu critico instructa, curante Societate regia antiquariorum septentrionalium. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp etc. and London: John & Arthur Arch.
14. Baetke, Walter. 1951. Christliches Lehngut in der Sagareligion: Das Svoldr-Problem. Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Kl. 98 (6). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Anonymous, Landnámabók’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=25> (accessed 19 April 2024)
17. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 41 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Hǫfuðlausn 8)’ 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. 249.
18. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2022, ‘Gísla saga Súrssonar 30 (Gísli Súrsson, Lausavísur 27)’ 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. 599.