Anon Krm 15^VIII

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi.
Herþjófi varð auðit
í Suðreyjum sjálfum
sigrs á órum mönnum.
Varð í randar regni
Rögnvaldr fyrir hníga;
sá kom hæstr of hölða
harmr at sverða gusti.
Hvast kastaði hristir
hjálms strengflaugar pálmi.

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi. Herþjófi varð auðit sigrs á mönnum órum í sjálfum Suðreyjum. Rögnvaldr varð hníga fyrir í {regni randar}; sá hæstr harmr kom of hölða at {gusti sverða}. {Hristir hjálms} kastaði hvast {pálmi strengflaugar}.

We hewed with the sword. Herþjófr was granted victory over our men in the Hebrides themselves. Rǫgnvaldr had to yield in {the rain of the shield} [BATTLE]; that greatest sorrow came upon men in {the breeze of swords} [BATTLE]. {The shaker of the helmet} [WARRIOR] vigorously propelled {the palm-tree of the bowstring’s groove} [ARROW].

Mss: 1824b(80r), 147(108v), 6ˣ(89r) (Ragn); R702ˣ(30v), LR(212-213), R693ˣ(11v)

Readings: [1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘Hiug. ver m. h᷎.’ 1824b, abbrev. as ‘[…] v(’) m(’) h(’)’(?) 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, abbrev. as ‘H v med h:’ R702ˣ    [2] Herþjófi varð auðit: ‘[...] (uard audit)’(?) 147    [3] í Suðreyjum sjálfum: ‘(j sudureyium sialf)[…]’(?) 147    [4] sigrs á órum mönnum: ‘[...] monnum’ 147    [5] í: so R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, at 1824b, ‘(j)’(?) 147, at with ‘j W.’ in margin 6ˣ;    randar: ‘[...]dar’ 147, randa R702ˣ, R693ˣ, ‘rauda’ LR;    regni: ‘[…]’ 147    [6] Rögnvaldr: ‘rr[…]g[…]lldur’ 147;    fyrir: so 147, 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘fyrrr’ 1824b, fyr or fyrir R702ˣ;    hníga: ‘hn(í)ga’(?) 147    [7] sá kom hæstr: ‘sa k(o)m h[…]ur’(?) 147;    of hölða (‘of haulda’): ‘[...] h[...]vllda’(?) 147, yfir hauka R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ    [8] harmr: so 6ˣ, R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘harrm’ 1824b, ‘har[...]’ 147;    at sverða: ‘[…] (sverda)’(?) 147;    gusti: leiki R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ    [9] Hvast kastaði hristir: ‘huas(t) [...]’(?) 147    [10] hjálms: so R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, almr 1824b, ‘[…](lmur)’(?) 147, ‘almur’ with ‘hialms W. fors. alms’ in margin 6ˣ;    strengflaugar: ‘strenglaugar’ 1824b, 6ˣ, R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘stre(ng)[…]’(?) 147;    pálmi: ‘[…]al[…]’ 147

Editions: Skj AI, 645, Skj BI, 652, Skald I, 318, NN §2155 anm.; Rafn 1826, 12-15, 125-7, Pfeiffer 1860, 125, CPB II, 342-3, Wisén 1886-9, I, 64, Krm 1891, 227, Finnur Jónsson 1893b, 88, Finnur Jónsson 1905, 155; Ragn 1906-8, 188.

Notes: [2-4]: The word order of these lines makes it highly unlikely that the def. adj. sjálfum is to be taken either as m. dat. sg. ‘himself’ and referring to Herþjófi in l. 2 or as referring in the dat. pl. to mönnum órum ‘our men’, viz. ‘our own men’ in l. 4. Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-89, II, 324 n. 292) favoured the latter possibility while rejecting the former, and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), with his translation vore egne mænd ‘our own men’, followed suit. The present ed. cannot agree with Konráð that taking the adj. sjálfum ‘themselves’ with Suðreyjum ‘the Hebrides’ gives ingen antagelig mening ‘no satisfactory meaning’. ‘In the Hebrides themselves’ makes good sense, as Olsen (1935, 79) recognised, assuming a Hebridean provenance for the poem’s composition, as discussed in the Introduction. See further Note to l. 3 below. — [2] Herþjófi ‘Herþjófr’: Herþjófr, lit. ‘Army-thief’, is a figure of legend of whom nothing is known, except that this name is one of those applied in Frið 36/3 by Friðþjófr, the hero of that saga, to himself, when replying in disguise to King Hringr of Ringerike’s inquiry as to his name; and it is also the name of a grandson of this Friðþjófr, Herþjófr Húnþjófsson, a king of Hǫrðaland (Hordaland) who in Gautr chs 3-5 (FSGJ 4, 11-26) kills King Haraldr of Agðir (Agder). — [3] í sjálfum Suðreyjum ‘in the Hebrides themselves’: The Suðreyjar, lit. ‘South Islands’, here in the dat., and so called, according to LP: Suðreyjar, because of their perceived geographical location in relation to that of the Orkneys, are the Hebrides. — [5] í regni randar ‘in the rain of the shield [BATTLE]’: There is little to choose here between the readings at  ‘at’ adopted by all eds prior to Finnur Jónsson (1893b) and í ‘in’, adopted in that and all subsequent eds, including the present. The latter reading, conveying the idea of ‘in the rain …’ is perhaps marginally more appropriate in the present instance, given the base-word regn ‘rain’ in the kenning. — [6] Rögnvaldr ‘Rǫgnvaldr’: This Rǫgnvaldr is almost certainly to be identified with the Rǫgnvaldr presented in the 1824b text of Ragn (and in all likelihood the 147 text also, see Ragn 1906-8, 180, 183) as the youngest of Ragnarr’s sons by his wife Áslaug (before the birth of their son Sigurðr, born after his death) and as dying heroically at Hvítabœr (Whitby in Yorkshire or Vitaby in Skåne, see Ragn 7/4, 6 and Note there); he is not mentioned at all in RagnSon and in Saxo’s account is mentioned only once as one of Ragnarr’s three sons by his wife Suanlogha who are too young to wield weapons (Saxo 2015, I, ix. 4. 17, pp. 644-5). His likely historical prototype is Rægnald, the viking king of York from 919 until his death in 921 (Stenton 1971, 333, 338; cf. Downham 2007, 91-5). If so, he cannot historically have been a son of Reginheri (d. 845), Ragnarr’s likely historical prototype, though he may have been a grandson of Imhar (d. 873), the viking king of Dublin who is himself a likely prototype of Ragnarr’s son Ívarr (McTurk 1991a, 99, 111; Downham 2007, 1-9, 29). The brevity of Rægnald’s reign in York (919-21) perhaps explains the emphasis on his youth in Ragn and by Saxo. In Krm, however, he is described, as will be evident, neither as a son of Ragnarr, nor as young, and as having died neither at Whitby nor at Vitaby, but in the Hebrides. It has been argued that Krm reflects here the western branch, spreading in the direction of the Hebrides, of an originally Northumbrian tradition of Rægnald, the eastern branch of which, reflected in Ragn and Saxo’s account, spread independently to Norway and Iceland by way of Denmark (McTurk 1991a, 98-114). For a modified version of this view, see Rowe (2012, 176). — [7] gusti sverða ‘the breeze of swords [BATTLE]’: This kenning arguably finds a close parallel in Hfr ErfÓl 12/6^I, where one of the variant readings of the kenning sverðjalmr ‘sword-screech [BATTLE]’, seems to point to the form sverðgustr ‘sword-breeze’ as a battle-kenning; cf. LP: sverðgustr, and de Vries (1964-7, II, 40 n. 68). — [10] pálmi strengflaugar ‘the palm-tree of the bowstring’s groove [ARROW]’: (a) The present ed. emends the mss’ ‘strenglaugar’ to strengflaugar, proposed by Falk (1923, 88), who was evidently following Sveinbjörn Egilsson (see Rafn 1826, 127; LP (1860): strenglög f.; cf. also Valdimar Ásmundarson (Krm 1891) and Kock (Skald)). The bowstring’s groove (strengflaug) is the notch in an arrow for the bow-string; this sense is attested in Eindr (Flat 1860-8, I, 463; ONP: strengflaug). (b) Earlier eds (Rafn 1826, Pfeiffer 1860 and those of CPB) read strenglögar, evidently taking this (see Pfeiffer 1860, 317) as gen. sg. of strenglög f. ‘groove (in a bow) for a bowstring’, examples of which, however, are hard to find, and which would in any case give less good sense than if the groove in the tail end of an arrow were what was meant. (c) The emendation to strenglágar, gen. sg. of strenglág f. ‘notch in arrow for bowstring’ adopted by Finnur Jónsson (1893b; 1905; Skj B; LP: strenglôg; cf. also Meissner 147), is hardly acceptable in that sense, since its second element, -lág f. is well attested in the sense ‘felled tree, log’; it is rejected by Falk (1923a, 88), and cf. Kock (NN §2155). On the possible Christian implications of the word pálmr ‘palm-tree’ here (when considered in relation to sts 11/5-7 and 18/7-8), see the discussion of Olsen (1933a) in the Introduction.

References

1. Bibliography
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3. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
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.
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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. LP (1860) = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1860. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis. Copenhagen: Societas Regia antiquariorum septentrionalium.
9. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
10. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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12. Finnur Jónsson. 1893b. Carmina Norrœna: Rettet Tekst. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche.
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18. Falk, Hjalmar. 1923a. Review of Rudolf Meissner. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. ANF 41, 59-89.
19. McTurk, Rory. 1991a. Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Medium Ævum Monographs new ser. 15. Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature.
20. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
21. Finnur Jónsson. 1905. ‘Krákumál’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1905, 151-83.
22. Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman. 2012. Vikings in the West: The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and his Sons. Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia 18. Vienna: Fassbaender.
23. Stenton, F. M. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
24. Krm 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 225-8) of Krm as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
25. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
26. Olsen, Magnus. 1935. ‘Krákumál’. MM, 78-80.
27. Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1826. Krakas Maal eller Kvad om Kong Ragnar Lodbroks Krigsbedrifter og Heltedød efter en gammel Skindbog og flere hidtil ubenyttede Haandskrifter med dansk, latinsk og fransk oversættelse, forskjellige Læsemaader, samt kritiske og philologiske Anmærkninger. Copenhagen: Jens Hostrup Schultz; London: John and Arthur Arch.
28. Downham, Clare. 2007. Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press.
29. Internal references
30. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gautreks saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 241. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=9> (accessed 18 April 2024)
31. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 18 April 2024)
32. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 18 April 2024)
33. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 18 April 2024)
34. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna 36 (Friðþjófr Þorsteinsson, Lausavísur 30)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 234.
35. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 37 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 7)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 697.