Rv Lv 9^II

Skekk hér skinnfeld hrokkinn;
skrauts mér afar lítit;
stórrs, sás stendr of órum,
stafnvǫllr, yfirhǫfnum.
Nærgis enn af úrgum
álvangs mari gǫngum
— brim rak hest við hamra
húns — skrautligar búnir.

Skekk hér hrokkinn skinnfeld; [e]s mér afar lítit skraut; {stafnvǫllr}, sás stendr of yfirhǫfnum órum, [e]s stórr. Nærgis gǫngum enn skrautligar búnir af {úrgum mari {álvangs}}; brim rak {hest húns} við hamra.

I shake out here a wrinkled leather garment; it provides me with very little finery; {the prow-field} [SEA] which surrounds our outerwear is big. Some day we’ll go more finely dressed from {a spray-swept horse {of the eel plain}} [SEA > SHIP]; surf drove {the stallion of the mast-head} [SHIP] onto cliffs.

Mss: Flat(139va), R702ˣ(43v) (Orkn)

Readings: [1] Skekk (‘Skekk ek’): ‘Sekki ek’ R702ˣ;    hér: om. R702ˣ    [3] órum: so R702ˣ, ‘aurum’ Flat    [5] Nærgis (‘no᷎rgi er’): so R702ˣ, ‘feingr er’ Flat;    úrgum: so R702ˣ, ungum Flat    [6] álvangs: so R702ˣ, ‘alfangs’ Flat    [7] brim: heim R702ˣ    [8] skrautligar: so R702ˣ, skrautligir Flat

Editions: Skj AI, 507, Skj BI, 480-1, Skald I, 236, NN §§2063, 2205E, 2735A; Flat 1860-8, II, 474, Orkn 1887, 150, Orkn 1913-16, 218, ÍF 34, 197 (ch. 85), Bibire 1988, 229-30.

Context: As for st. 8.

Notes: [All]: After uttering st. 8, Rǫgnvaldr is offered a leather garment by the mistress of the farm where he is staying; the saga says hann ... tók hlæjandi við ok kvað ‘he ... accepted it with a laugh and spoke’ before citing st. 9. Finnbogi Guðmundsson’s interpretation of this st. (ÍF 34; similarly Bibire 1988, though his translation is not especially clear) links l. 2 with the main statement in the second helmingr, making Rǫgnvaldr say something to the effect that the leather garment just given to him will provide little finery whenever he steps better-dressed off a ship. While it is conceivable that Rǫgnvaldr is disparaging the garment by saying that he will never wear it in future, it makes more sense to see contrast rather than continuity between the two halves of the st. In ll. 1-2, Rǫgnvaldr is disparaging of a garment. In ll. 5-6, 8 he expresses the hope that in the future he will step well-dressed from his ship, in contrast to his present gear, which has been truly sodden (ll. 3-4). The st. makes no reference to a woman giving him a leather garment, and it is more natural to read l. 1 as referring to Rǫgnvaldr’s own sodden clothing which he is shaking out once on dry land. This interpretation is based on the argument made by Kock (NN §2735) that nærgis (l. 5) means not just ‘when, whenever’ (the usual meaning recorded in dictionaries), but has an additional implication of det blir kanske bättre en annan gång ‘things may be better another time’; he cites Egill Lv 19^V, Þorm Lv 1^V, Klauf Lv 2^V and KormǪ Lv 40^V which all show the poet with a positive attitude to a future event. — [1] skekk ‘I shake out’: This represents the 1st pers. sg. pres. indic. of skaka, with suffixed pron., i.e. skek ek. — [1] skinnfeld ‘leather garment’: The various witnesses to the prose of Orkn differ as to what exactly is being offered to Rǫgnvaldr. Flat has skinnfeldarskikkju ‘cloak made of leather’, R702ˣ (which sometimes includes the prose of the saga, but not always exactly) has skinnfeld ... fyrir skikkju ‘piece of leather ... as a cloak’ (also Worm 1650, 117), and Holm papp 39 folˣ (an early modern translation of the saga into Dan.) has en skindfeld oc en kiortel ‘a piece of leather and a tunic’ (Orkn 1913-16, 218 n.). But see above, in which it is suggested that the st. does not describe the gift of a wrinkled garment. — [2]: The l. has skothending rather than aðalhending.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Worm, Ole. 1650. Specimen lexici runici: Obscuriorum qvarundam vocum qvæ in priscis occurunt historiis & poëtis Danicis, enodationem exhibens. Hafniæ (Copenhagen): Martzan.
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. Orkn 1887 = Gudbrand Vigfusson 1887-94, I.
10. Internal references
11. (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 27 April 2024)
12. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 26 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 19)’ 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. 218.
13. Edith Marold (ed.) 2022, ‘Kormáks saga 59 (Kormákr Ǫgmundarson, Lausavísur 40)’ 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. 1128.
14. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Fóstbrœðra saga 8 (Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld, Lausavísur 1)’ 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. 495.
15. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2022, ‘Svarfdœla saga 2 (Klaufi Snækollsson, Lausavísur 2)’ 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. 1343.