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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon Krm 22VIII

Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Krákumál 22’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 762.

Anonymous PoemsKrákumál
212223

This second part of Krm is more reflective in character than the first. The speaker advocates courage and heroism in battle (sts 22-3); says that he had not expected that King Ælle would be the cause of his death, and speaks of having fought extensively in Scotland’s firths (st. 24); rejoices in the knowledge that he will soon (after death) be feasting with the god Óðinn (st. 25); claims that his sons by Áslaug would take up arms if they knew how many poisonous snakes were tearing at him (st. 26); says that his end is near, that a snake has entered his heart, and that he expects his sons, in their anger at his death, to take vengeance on Ælle (st. 27); claims to have engaged in fifty-one battles during his lifetime, after beginning his martial career at an early age, and to have expected least of all that another king would defeat him, though he declares that the gods will invite him to join them, and that death gives no cause for anxiety (st. 28). Finally, he says that he wishes to end his recital, since the handmaids of Óðinn, the dísir, are inviting him to Óðinn’s hall; that he will be happy to drink ale in the high seat with the gods; that all hope of life is gone; and that he will die laughing (st. 29).

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi.
Hví sé drengr at feigri,
at hann í odda éli
öndurðr látinn verði?
Opt sýtir sá ævi,
er aldrigi nistir
— ilt kveða argan eggja —
örn at sverða leiki.
Hugblauðum kemr hvergi
hjarta sitt at gagni.

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi. Hví sé drengr at feigri, at hann verði látinn öndurðr í {éli odda}? Sá, er aldrigi nistir örn at {leiki sverða}, sýtir opt ævi; kveða ilt eggja argan. Hugblauðum kemr hjarta sitt hvergi at gagni.

We hewed with the sword. Why should a fellow be any the more likely to die, because he is placed in the front line in {the shower of spear-points} [BATTLE]? He who never feeds the eagle in {the game of swords} [BATTLE] often regrets his life; they say it’s a troublesome business egging on a coward. The heart of a cowardly man is never of any use to him.

Mss: 1824b(80v) (ll. 1-5), 147(108v), 6ˣ(90r-v) (Ragn); R702ˣ(31r) (ll. 5-10), LR(219-220), R693ˣ(15r)

Readings: [1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H[…]n. h᷎’ 1824b, abbrev. as ‘H[…] (v’) m(’) h(’)’(?) 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, abbrev. as ‘H v m h:’ R702ˣ    [2] Hví: ‘[…]’ 147, hvé 6ˣ, hvat R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ;    sé: er LR, R693ˣ;    drengr: so R702ˣ, 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘dr[…]ng[…]’ 1824b, ‘dreng’ 147;    at: ‘[…]’ 1824b, ‘(at)’(?) 147;    feigri: ‘f[...]gri’ 147    [3] hann: so R702ˣ, 6ˣ, ‘[...]’ 1824b, 147, ‘hun’ LR, ‘han’ R693ˣ;    í odda: ‘(j) [...](dda)’(?) 147;    éli: so R702ˣ, 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘elium’ 1824b, ‘[...]’ 147    [4] öndurðr: so R702ˣ, 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘a[...]d[...]dr’ 1824b, ‘[...]’ 147;    látinn verði: so R702ˣ, 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘[...]erdi’ 1824b, ‘(latinn ver)di’(?) 147    [5] Opt sýtir ævi: so all others, ‘vpt [...]t[...]’ 1824b    [6] nistir: ‘nester’ LR, corrected from ‘nester’ R693ˣ    [7] argan eggja: om. 147    [8] örn: ‘a(u)rn’(?) 147, ‘aurum’ 6ˣ, ‘auru’ LR    [9] Hugblauðum kemr hvergi: ‘h+’ with ‘hugblaudum kemr huergi’ written at the bottom of the page 147;    Hugblauðum: ‘hugblaudum’ with caret between b and a indicating l written above the line R693ˣ;    hvergi: ‘hvorge’ LR, R693ˣ    [10] hjarta: ‘hiar(ta)d’(?) 147, ‘hiarte’ LR

Editions: Skj AI, 647, Skj BI, 654, Skald I, 320; Rafn 1826, 18-19, 139-42, Pfeiffer 1860, 126, CPB II, 343-4, Wisén 1886-9, I, 65, Krm 1891, 227-8, Finnur Jónsson 1893b, 89-90, Finnur Jónsson 1905, 156; Ragn 1906-8, 188.

Notes: [All]: Ms. 1824b concludes with the first part of l. 5 of st. 22; thereafter R702ˣ is taken as base ms. for this edn. — [2-4]: The sentiment expressed here may at first sight seem at variance with the ready, even cheerful acceptance of death that is so much a characteristic of heroes in the face of death as portrayed in Germanic literature, witness for example st. 29/8 below and the cases of Hǫgni Gjúkason and his brother Gunnarr (the latter another snake-pit victim) in Akv 24-7. The lines may however be read as an ironic exhortation to people of cowardly disposition of the type described in ll. 5-10 of the present stanza, meaning: ‘you are no more likely to die in the front line than in other situations into which the fortunes of war might lead you, so you may as well pluck up your courage and join the fray’. In other words, death is altogether likely in any case, so why not meet that likelihood with courage rather than cowardice? — [2] at feigri ‘any the more likely to die’: On the prep. at used adverbially before a comp. adj. in the sense of ‘any the …, so much the …’, see LP: 1. at D. The adj. feigr ‘fated to die, doomed’ expresses a concept of pre-ordained destiny very common in Germanic heroic poetry. — [3]: The line is unmetrical, with hann being extrametrical, but, if hann were deleted, at is unlikely to be able to carry full stress and there would be three alliterating staves. — [6, 8] nistir örn ‘feeds the eagle’: This phrasing uses similar vocabulary to ESk Hardr I 1/6II and ESk Geisl 25/6VII, where the warrior-kennings ulfnistandi ‘wolf-feeder’ and nistandi ulfs ‘feeder of the wolf’ occur respectively, cf. de Vries (1964-7, II, 40 n. 68).  — [7-8]: Line 7, treated as an intercalary clause by the present ed. and by previous eds from Finnur Jónsson (1893b) onwards (i.e. Finnur Jónsson and Kock), contains an acc. and inf. construction with the subject acc. (qualified by ilt ‘troublesome’) and the inf. vera ‘be’ omitted, meaning literally ‘they declare it (subject acc., omitted) (to be) troublesome (ilt n. acc. sg.) to egg on a coward’. Previous eds, while recognising this construction, had read l. 7 as running on syntactically to l. 8, understanding the two lines to mean: ‘they say it’s a troublesome business egging on a coward to the brisk game of battle’. For the sense ‘brisk’, see Note to l. 8. — [8] örn ‘the eagle’: Previous eds prior to Finnur Jónsson (1893b) had adopted the reading ǫrum here, seeing this as the dat. sg. m. of the adj. ǫrr ‘brisk’ and qualifying leiki ‘game’, thus giving the sense ‘to the brisk game of battle’ (see the previous Note), with the dat. presumably implying a sense of motion towards. The present ed. follows Finnur (1893b) and subsequent eds, and Kock (Skald), in adopting here the reading örn acc. ‘the eagle’, taking it as the object of nistir ‘feeds’ in l. 6, with l. 7 taken as an intercalary clause, and seeing the eagle in question as a typical beast of battle. — [9-10]: The lit. sense of these lines is ‘to a cowardly man his heart is never of any use’.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  6. Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
  7. Finnur Jónsson. 1893b. Carmina Norrœna: Rettet Tekst. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche.
  8. Pfeiffer, Friedrich. 1860. Altnordisches Lesebuch. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.
  9. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
  10. Finnur Jónsson. 1905. ‘Krákumál’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1905, 151-83.
  11. Krm 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 225-8) of Krm as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
  12. 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.
  13. Internal references
  14. 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 28 March 2024)
  15. Martin Chase 2007, ‘ Einarr Skúlason, Geisli’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 5-65. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1144> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  16. Kari Ellen Gade 2009, ‘ Einarr Skúlason, Haraldsdrápa I’ 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, pp. 542-4. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1145> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  17. Not published: do not cite ()
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