RvHbreiðm Hl 78^III

Ben svall; brandr gall;
beit egg manns legg;
roðin var — rǫnd skar
rendr hjǫrr — benstǫrr.
Rautt blóð rann þjóð;
riðu sverð; hné ferð;
almr hrauzk — hræ bauzk
hrafns ætt — óslætt.

Ben svall; brandr gall; egg beit legg manns; {benstǫrr} var roðin; rendr hjǫrr skar rǫnd. Rautt blóð rann þjóð; sverð riðu; ferð hné; almr hrauzk óslætt; hræ bauzk ætt hrafns.

A wound swelled; a blade resounded; an edge bit a man’s leg; {wound-sedge-grass} [SWORD] was reddened; the drawn sword cut a shield-rim. Red blood poured from people; swords swung; the company fell; an elm-bow discharged itself not bluntly; carrion was offered to the family of the raven.

Mss: papp25ˣ(39r), R683ˣ(134r)

Readings: [5] Rautt: ‘raut’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ    [7] hrauzk (‘raudz’): so R683ˣ, ‘rauds’ papp25ˣ    [8] hrafns: ‘rams’ papp25ˣ, R683ˣ;    óslætt: so R683ˣ, óslæt papp25ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 527, Skj BI, 507, Skald I, 249, NN §§2083, 2540B, 2990F; Hl 1941, 31, 94-6.

Context: As st. 77 above.

Notes: [1] ben svall ‘a wound swelled’: See st. 42/2. — [3] var ‘was’: For the rhotacised [r] in this word, see Note to st. 13/1 above. See also st. 78/1 above. — [4] rendr ‘drawn’: Rendr ‘drawn’ (p. p. of renna ‘set in motion’) could also be translated as ‘edged’, i.e. ‘provided with an edge (of iron)’ (see Heggstad et al. 2008: renna 4), which would be the p. p. of a weak verb *renda (< *randjan), derived from *randu ‘edge’ (ON rǫnd). — [4] benstǫrr ‘the wound-sedge-grass [SWORD]’: For stǫrr ‘sedge-grass’, see st. 40/8. — [5-8]: The second helmingr can be interpreted in two different ways, depending on whether the phonetic forms are Norwegian or Icelandic. Rugman consistently renders the consonant cluster hr- as <r> (loss of initial h- can be dated to the end of the Viking Age in Norway, but h- was preserved in Icelandic; see Seip 1955, 68, 76, 162). In rautt (‘raut’, both mss, l. 5) we are dealing either with a Norwegian form of the verb hrjóta ‘gush’ (hraut) or with the adj. rautt (n. nom. sg.) ‘red’ (with <t> possibly representing <tt>; see Note to st. 4/3). If the skald (Rǫgnvaldr?) used Norwegian forms in this stanza, l. 5 must be rendered as raut blóð; rann þjóð ‘blood gushed; people ran’ and l. 7 as almr rauzk; ræ bauzk ‘an elm-bow was reddened; carrion was offered’. In that case, the adv. óslætt ‘not bluntly’ (l. 8) must be assigned to the first clause in l. 6: sverð riðu óslætt ‘swords swung not bluntly’ (so R683ˣ) or óslæt sverð riðu ‘sharp (lit. not blunt) swords swung’ (so papp25ˣ). See the discussion in Hl 1941 and Konráð Gíslason (1895-7, II, 86-8). — [7] hrauzk ‘discharged itself’: For the papp25ˣ form of this verb, ‘rauds’, see Note to st. 77/5. — [8] hrafns ‘of the raven’: The ms. form ‘rams’ reflects loss of initial h- (see Note to ll. 5-8 above), assimilation fn > mn and loss of medial ‑n- in the consonant cluster ‑mns (see Hl 1941, 113).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Konráð Gíslason. 1895-7. Efterladte skrifter. 2 vols. I: Forelæsninger over oldnordiske skjaldekvad. II: Forelæsninger og videnskablige afhandlinger. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
5. Seip, Didrik Arup. 1955. Norsk språkhistorie til omkring 1370. 2nd edn. Oslo: Aschehoug.
6. Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
7. Internal references
8. Not published: do not cite (Run^VI)