Anon Krm 28VIII
Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Poems, Krákumál 28’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 774.
Hjuggu ‘hewed’
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hǫggva (verb): to strike, put to death, cut, hew
[1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H. v. m. h.’ R702ˣ, ‘H[...] v[...] m[...] h[...]rvi’ 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ
vér ‘We’
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vér (pron.; °gen. vár, dat./acc. oss): we, us, our
[1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H. v. m. h.’ R702ˣ, ‘H[...] v[...] m[...] h[...]rvi’ 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ
með ‘with’
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með (prep.): with
[1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H. v. m. h.’ R702ˣ, ‘H[...] v[...] m[...] h[...]rvi’ 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ
hjörvi ‘the sword’
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hjǫrr (noun m.): sword
[1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H. v. m. h.’ R702ˣ, ‘H[...] v[...] m[...] h[...]rvi’ 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
[2] Hef ek: ‘(hef)eg’(?) 147, hefisk 6ˣ
tigum ‘times ten’
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tigr (noun m.; °-ar/-s(DN II (1309) 80¹², etc.); -ir, acc. -u): a ten of, a decade; a ten of, a decade
[2] fimm tigum sinna: ‘fimtugu[...]’ 147
fólkorrostur ‘battles between peoples’
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folkorrusta (noun f.)
[3] fólkorrostur framðar: ‘(fo)lkorrust[...] (fr)amd(ar)’(?) 147
notes
[3] fólkorrostur ‘battles between peoples’: The same expression occurs in Sigv Berv 1/3II and Sigv ErfÓl 22/3I; cf. de Vries (1964-7, II, 40 n. 68).
framðar ‘conducted’
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fremja (verb): advance, perform
[3] fólkorrostur framðar: ‘(fo)lkorrust[...] (fr)amd(ar)’(?) 147
flein ‘of the spear’
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fleinn (noun m.; °dat. fleini): spear < fleinþing (noun n.): spear-assembly
kennings
boði fleinþings,‘the instigator of the spear-assembly, ’
= WARRIOR
the spear-assembly, → BATTLE
the instigator of the BATTLE → WARRIOR
flein ‘of the spear’
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fleinn (noun m.; °dat. fleini): spear < fleinþing (noun n.): spear-assembly
kennings
boði fleinþings,‘the instigator of the spear-assembly, ’
= WARRIOR
the spear-assembly, → BATTLE
the instigator of the BATTLE → WARRIOR
þings ‘assembly’
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þing (noun n.; °-s; -): meeting, assembly < fleinþing (noun n.): spear-assembly
kennings
boði fleinþings,‘the instigator of the spear-assembly, ’
= WARRIOR
the spear-assembly, → BATTLE
the instigator of the BATTLE → WARRIOR
þings ‘assembly’
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þing (noun n.; °-s; -): meeting, assembly < fleinþing (noun n.): spear-assembly
kennings
boði fleinþings,‘the instigator of the spear-assembly, ’
= WARRIOR
the spear-assembly, → BATTLE
the instigator of the BATTLE → WARRIOR
boði ‘the instigator’
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boði (noun m.; °-a; -ar): messenger, breaker
kennings
boði fleinþings,‘the instigator of the spear-assembly, ’
= WARRIOR
the spear-assembly, → BATTLE
the instigator of the BATTLE → WARRIOR
ok ‘and’
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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also
eina ‘one more’
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1. einn (num. cardinal; °f. ein, n. eitt; pl. einir; superl. debil. -asti(Anna238(2001) 155³²)): one; alone
Minnst ‘least’
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3. minni (adj. comp.; °superl. minnstr): less, least
[5] Minnst: ‘(mins[…])’(?) 147
notes
[5] ek hugða minnst manna ‘I, least of [all] people, thought’: I.e. ‘I am the last person to have thought [that another king would prove superior to me]’. This understanding of the lines is in keeping with the spirit of heroic pride that the speaker is showing at this and indeed at all stages of the poem.
notes
[5] ek hugða minnst manna ‘I, least of [all] people, thought’: I.e. ‘I am the last person to have thought [that another king would prove superior to me]’. This understanding of the lines is in keeping with the spirit of heroic pride that the speaker is showing at this and indeed at all stages of the poem.
ek ‘I’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
notes
[5] ek hugða minnst manna ‘I, least of [all] people, thought’: I.e. ‘I am the last person to have thought [that another king would prove superior to me]’. This understanding of the lines is in keeping with the spirit of heroic pride that the speaker is showing at this and indeed at all stages of the poem.
manna ‘of [all] people’
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maðr (noun m.): man, person
notes
[5] ek hugða minnst manna ‘I, least of [all] people, thought’: I.e. ‘I am the last person to have thought [that another king would prove superior to me]’. This understanding of the lines is in keeping with the spirit of heroic pride that the speaker is showing at this and indeed at all stages of the poem.
at ‘that’
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4. at (conj.): that
mér ‘superior’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
vera ‘prove’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
[6] vera skyldi: ‘(ver)[...] skylldi’(?) 147
skyldi ‘would’
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skulu (verb): shall, should, must
[6] vera skyldi: ‘(ver)[...] skylldi’(?) 147
ungr ‘at a young age’
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ungr (adj.): young
ek ‘began’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
odd ‘the sword-point’
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oddr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -i; -ar): point of weapon
[7] odd at rjóða: ‘(o)d(d) at [...]’(?) 147
annarr ‘another’
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1. annarr (pron.; °f. ǫnnur, n. annat; pl. aðrir): (an)other, second
konungr ‘king’
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konungr (noun m.; °dat. -i, -s; -ar): king
[8] konungr: ‘[...](konungur)’(?) 147
fremri ‘to me’
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framr (adj.; °compar. framari/fremri, superl. framastr/fremstr): outstanding, foremost
[8] fremri: ‘(fremri)’(?) 147, frægri 6ˣ
Oss ‘us’
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vér (pron.; °gen. vár, dat./acc. oss): we, us, our
[9] Oss munu: ‘(oss munu)’(?) 147
notes
[9] æsir munu bjóða oss ‘the gods will invite us’: The speaker sees himself being invited to Valhǫll, the mythical ‘hall of the slain’, presided over by Óðinn, in which warriors who have fallen in battle (the einherjar) enjoy their afterlife (cf. Notes to sts 4/4 and 25/3 above). Valhǫll is described most fully in Gylf (SnE 2005, 32-4); cf. Grí 8-10, 18-26 and Anon Eirm 1/3, 5I. See the Notes to those lines. Both here and in Eyv HákI (cf. st. 10/4-6 there) it is the gods as a group, rather than Óðinn alone, who invite the hero to enter Valhǫll.
notes
[9] æsir munu bjóða oss ‘the gods will invite us’: The speaker sees himself being invited to Valhǫll, the mythical ‘hall of the slain’, presided over by Óðinn, in which warriors who have fallen in battle (the einherjar) enjoy their afterlife (cf. Notes to sts 4/4 and 25/3 above). Valhǫll is described most fully in Gylf (SnE 2005, 32-4); cf. Grí 8-10, 18-26 and Anon Eirm 1/3, 5I. See the Notes to those lines. Both here and in Eyv HákI (cf. st. 10/4-6 there) it is the gods as a group, rather than Óðinn alone, who invite the hero to enter Valhǫll.
æsir ‘The gods’
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2. Áss (noun m.; °áss, dat. ási/ás; ásar): god
[9] æsir: ‘æs(ir)’(?) 147, ‘aesar’ LR
notes
[9] æsir munu bjóða oss ‘the gods will invite us’: The speaker sees himself being invited to Valhǫll, the mythical ‘hall of the slain’, presided over by Óðinn, in which warriors who have fallen in battle (the einherjar) enjoy their afterlife (cf. Notes to sts 4/4 and 25/3 above). Valhǫll is described most fully in Gylf (SnE 2005, 32-4); cf. Grí 8-10, 18-26 and Anon Eirm 1/3, 5I. See the Notes to those lines. Both here and in Eyv HákI (cf. st. 10/4-6 there) it is the gods as a group, rather than Óðinn alone, who invite the hero to enter Valhǫll.
bjóða ‘invite’
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bjóða (verb; °býðr; bauð, buðu; boðinn (buð- Thom¹ 5²n.)): offer, order, invite
notes
[9] æsir munu bjóða oss ‘the gods will invite us’: The speaker sees himself being invited to Valhǫll, the mythical ‘hall of the slain’, presided over by Óðinn, in which warriors who have fallen in battle (the einherjar) enjoy their afterlife (cf. Notes to sts 4/4 and 25/3 above). Valhǫll is described most fully in Gylf (SnE 2005, 32-4); cf. Grí 8-10, 18-26 and Anon Eirm 1/3, 5I. See the Notes to those lines. Both here and in Eyv HákI (cf. st. 10/4-6 there) it is the gods as a group, rather than Óðinn alone, who invite the hero to enter Valhǫll.
era ‘is’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
[10] era: ‘(eigi er)’(?) 147, er at 6ˣ, er ei LR, R693ˣ
sýtandi ‘not to be feared’
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sýta (verb): lament
[10] sýtandi dauði: so 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, sýtanda dauða R702ˣ
notes
[10] sýtandi ‘to be feared’: An example of the pres. part. used predicatively with passive meaning (see NS §239).
dauði ‘death’
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dauði (noun m.; °-a; -ar): death
[10] sýtandi dauði: so 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, sýtanda dauða R702ˣ
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
We hewed with the sword. I, the instigator of the spear-assembly [BATTLE > WARRIOR], have conducted five times ten battles between peoples, and one more. I least of [all] people thought that another king would prove superior to me; I began at a young age to redden the sword-point. The gods will invite us; death is not to be feared.
Lines 2-8 bear a striking resemblance to Ragn 26/1-6 and some resemblance (in ll. 5-6, 8) to st. 24/5-6, above; cf. Note to st. 24/5-6 above and McTurk (2012b, 376-8). — [1-3]: See Note to st. 27/7-10, above for an account of the arrangement of these lines in 147. — [2-4]: The present ed. takes boði in l. 4 as nom. sg. of boði ‘offerer, instigator’, and as the base-word in a warrior-kenning boði fleinþings ‘instigator of the spear-assembly’, standing in apposition to ek ‘I’ as the subject of the sentence. Some eds (Krm 1891; Finnur Jónsson 1893b; Finnur Jónsson 1905; Skj B; Skald) emend hef ek ‘I have’ in l. 2 to 3rd pers. sg. hefir, hefr ‘has’, thus making the warrior-kenning in l. 4 the sole grammatical subject of the sentence, and producing the meaning ‘the warrior has conducted …’, i.e., presenting the speaker of the poem as referring to himself in the 3rd pers. This emendation seems unnecessary. — [2-4]: The speaker of the poem claims here to have been involved in fifty-one battles (‘five times ten ... and one more’) during his lifetime. In none of the surviving accounts of Ragnarr loðbrók can as many battles as this in which he takes part be counted. In popular narrative, as Olrik (1921, 75; 1992, 52) has indicated, the number five tends to signify ‘many’. It seems likely that the number fifty, as it occurs here and in Ragn 26, was originally chosen to suggest a large number, and that ok eina ‘and one more’ has been added in each case to fill out an even-numbered line with a rhyming cadence. The addition of ok eina ‘and one more (battle)’ is syntactically awkward here, since fimm tigum sinna, lit. ‘five tens of times’, is an adverbial phrase of time of the kind illustrated in NS §118, with tigum dat. pl. of tigr ‘(unit of) ten’, here governing the gen. pl. sinna of sinn ‘time, occasion’ (see NS §118, and cf. §§128-30 and 127). The sentence thus means lit. ‘I have conducted battles between peoples five tens of times, and one more (battle)’. — [5-6, 8]: The king (annarr konungr ‘another king’) referred to in l. 8, is Ella (OE Ælle), mentioned by name in sts 24/5 and 27/6.
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