Rv Lv 4^II

Sextán hefik sénar
senn ok topp í enni
jarðar elli firrðar
ormvangs saman ganga.
Þat bôrum vér vitni,
vestr at hér sé flestar
— sjá liggr út við élum
ey — kollóttar meyjar.

Hefik sénar sextán senn, firrðar {elli {jarðar {ormvangs}}}, ok topp í enni, ganga saman. Vér bôrum þat vitni, at hér vestr sé flestar meyjar kollóttar; sjá ey liggr út við élum.

I have seen sixteen [women] all at once, denuded of {the old age {of the ground of {the serpent-field}}} [GOLD > WOMAN > BEARD], and [they had] a fringe on their forehead, walking together. We bore witness to the fact that, here in the west, most maidens are bald; that island lies out in the direction of storms.

Mss: Flat(137va), R702ˣ(41v) (Orkn)

Readings: [1] hefik (‘hefe ek’): so R702ˣ, ‘hefir ek’ Flat    [3] elli: so R702ˣ, eldi Flat    [5] bôrum: ‘baru’ R702ˣ    [7] élum: ‘elon’ Flat, ‘elu’ R702ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 506, Skj BI, 479, Skald I, 235, NN §2061; Flat 1860-8, II, 458, Orkn 1887, 123-4, Orkn 1913-16, 182, ÍF 34, 163-4 (ch. 72), Bibire 1988, 227.

Context: Rǫgnvaldr is on the island of Westray in Orkney during his campaign to claim his inheritance. While attending church on Sunday, he sees sixteen persons who are slyppir ok kollóttir ‘unarmed and bald’. His astonished men discuss who they could be.

Notes: [All]: According to the chronology of Orkn this took place in April 1136 (Taylor 1938, 252), but Taylor (1938, 386) suggests that the episode is in fact another version of an incident in ch. 77 which also describes the sight of fifteen or sixteen men led by a bishop with a distinctive tonsure and which took place at Christmas in 1138. The st. is probably placed here because it seems to refer to Westray (Vestrey), but it has no obvious connection with either the preceding or the following events which are indeed located in Westray. — [1, 3] sénar; firrðar ‘seen; denuded of’: The f. acc. pl. endings on both of these inflected past participles indicate that the sixteen persons are figured as female based on their being clean-shaven, unarmed, and (presumably) because they are wearing long robes. — [2] ok topp ‘and [they had] a fringe’: Kock (NN §2061) suggests this is an example of an adverbial acc. — [2, 8] topp í enni; kollóttar ‘a fringe on their forehead; bald’: This appears to describe the standard Western coronal tonsure (which leaves the hair in a ring on the head), rather than the insular tonsure, as suggested in ÍF 34. The form of the latter has recently been thoroughly discussed in McCarthy 2003, who argues that it had a triangular shape. The coronal tonsure is similar to male-pattern baldness and is thus the clue that the people being observed are not women after all. The st. plays on various gender ambiguities to explain how a group of men can be both unarmed and bald. — [3-4] firrðar elli jarðar ormvangs ‘denuded of the old age of the ground of the serpent-field [GOLD > WOMAN > BEARD]’: The kenning refers to the fact that old women sometimes grow facial hair; these monks are clean-shaven. Skj B emends jarðar (gen. sg.) to jarðir (acc. pl.) and interprets the main statement of ll. 1-4 as Hefk sénar sextán ormvangs jarðir, elli firðar translated as Jeg har set 16 kvinder, fjærnt fra alderdommen ‘I have seen sixteen women [grounds of the serpent-field], far from old age’, i.e. young women. This has the virtue of agreeing with meyjar ‘maidens’ (l. 8) and avoids an awkward transition in the kenning from an abstraction (elli ‘old age’) to a physical entity (a beard). However, as well as requiring an emendation, it seems an odd way of referring to young women—firrðar specifically means ‘removed’ rather than just ‘far’, and it is not clear in what way they have been ‘removed’ from old age. Skj B does not, of course, explain how a st. about women is to be understood in the saga context; the present interpretation, while admittedly requiring an awkward kenning, at least provides a clue. — [6, 7, 8] hér vestr; sjá ey ‘here in the west; that island’: The saga-author clearly understood this st. to refer to Westray which, as the westernmost of the Orkneys, does indeed lie ‘out in the direction of storms’. If there was a monastic community in this area at the time, it is more likely to have been on the small island of Papa Westray, but both the saga-context and the st. suggest that Rǫgnvaldr and his men saw the monks on Westray itself. — [7] élum ‘storms’: The emendation was first suggested in Orkn 1887. It is likely that the scribe of R702ˣ merely omitted or missed the abbreviation mark for ‘m’, as he did with ‘baru’ in l. 5.

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. 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.
6. ÍF 34 = Orkneyinga saga. Ed. Finnbogi Guðmundsson. 1965.
7. Orkn 1913-16 = Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1913-16. Orkneyinga saga. SUGNL 40. Copenhagen: Møller.
8. Bibire, Paul. 1988. ‘The Poetry of Earl Rǫgnvaldr’s Court’. In Crawford 1988, 208-40.
9. McCarthy, Daniel. 2003. ‘On the Shape of the Insular Tonsure’. Celtica 24, 140-67.
10. Taylor, A. B. 1938. The Orkneyinga Saga: A New Translation with Introduction and Notes. Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd.
11. Orkn 1887 = Gudbrand Vigfusson 1887-94, I.
12. Internal references
13. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Orkneyinga saga’ 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=47> (accessed 26 April 2024)