Sigv Austv 4^I

Réðk til Hofs at hœfa;
hurð vas aptr, en spurðumk
— inn settak nef nenninn
niðrlútt — fyrir útan.
Orð gatk fæst af fyrðum,
(flǫgð baðk) en þau sǫgðu
— hnekkðumk heiðnir rekkar —
heilagt (við þau deila).

Réðk at hœfa til Hofs; hurð vas aptr, en spurðumk fyrir útan; nenninn settak niðrlútt nef inn. Gatk fæst orð af fyrðum, en þau sǫgðu heilagt; heiðnir rekkar hnekkðumk; baðk flǫgð deila við þau.

I resolved to aim for Hof; the door was barred, but I made enquiries from outside; resolute, I stuck my down-bent nose in. I got very little response from the people, but they said [it was] holy; the heathen men drove me off; I bade the ogresses bandy words with them.

Mss: Holm2(25v), R686ˣ(49v), 972ˣ(177va), J2ˣ(160r-v), 325VI(17ra), 75a(14vb), 73aˣ(64v), 68(24v), 61(94ra), Holm4(17ra), 75c(14v), 325VII(12v), Flat(93ra), Tóm(113r) (ÓH); Kˣ(303v-304r), Bb(152vb) (Hkr)

Readings: [1] Réð: reið 972ˣ(177va), ræð J2ˣ, 325VII    [2] hurð vas (‘hurð var’): hurðum J2ˣ;    en: so R686ˣ, 972ˣ(177va), 325VI, 75a, 73aˣ, 68, 61, Holm4, 75c, 325VII, Flat, Tóm, Kˣ, Bb, om. Holm2, J2ˣ;    spurðumk: spurða Flat    [3] settak (‘setta ec’): setja ek R686ˣ, sett ek 325VI;    nenninn: ‘mininn’ R686ˣ, ‘min neinnin’ 972ˣ(177va), ‘nætinn’ 75a, nefinn 68, ‘nenní’ Flat, ‘neníum’ Tóm, ‘neinnínn’ Bb    [4] ‑lútt: ‑lút J2ˣ, 73aˣ, ‘l(ú)tr’(?) 325VI, mjǫk lút 325VII, hlut Bb    [5] fæst: fest 972ˣ(177va), ‘faust’ 325VI, 68, flest 75a, 73aˣ, fyrst 61, 75c, Tóm, Bb, fæst apparently corrected from ‘fꜹst’ 325VII, fýst Flat;    af: so 325VI, 68, Holm4, 75c, 325VII, Tóm, Kˣ, Bb, en Holm2, 972ˣ(177va), J2ˣ, 75a, 73aˣ, em R686ˣ, at 61, Flat;    fyrðum: fyrstum 61    [6] baðk (‘bað ek’): bað Bb;    þau: so 972ˣ(177va), 325VI, 75a, 73aˣ, 68, 61, Holm4, 75c, 325VII, Flat, Tóm, Kˣ, om. Holm2, R686ˣ, J2ˣ, Bb;    sǫgðu: so 75c, Flat, Tóm, Kˣ, þǫgðu Holm2, R686ˣ, 972ˣ(177va), J2ˣ, 75a, 73aˣ, 68, 61, Holm4, 325VII, Bb, sǫgðu corrected from ‘þǫgðu’ 325VI    [7] hnekkðumk: hneykðusk R686ˣ, ‘hneiktust’ 972ˣ(177va), hnekkðust 75a, 73aˣ, 61, Flat, Tóm;    rekkar: om. Holm4, rekka Bb

Editions: Skj AI, 234, Skj BI, 221, Skald I, 115, NN §2472; Fms 4, 186, Fms 12, 83-4, ÓH 1853, 80, 272, ÓH 1941, I, 200 (ch. 75), Flat 1860-8, II, 113; Hkr 1777-1826, II, 124, VI, 84-5, Hkr 1868, 308 (ÓHHkr ch. 92), Hkr 1893-1901, II, 170-1, ÍF 27, 136-7, Hkr 1991, I, 347 (ÓHHkr ch. 91); Ternström 1871, 14-15, 44-5, Konráð Gíslason 1892, 37, 177, Jón Skaptason 1983, 85, 239.

Context: The travellers make their way through Gautland (Västergötland) and in the evening reach a farm named Hof, where they are refused entry because it is deemed a holy place. They depart, and Sigvatr speaks this stanza.

Notes: [1] Hofs ‘Hof’: The status of this is uncertain. (a) Snorri plainly regards Hof as a proper name (see Context above). Hof is common as a simplex p. n. (as well as prefixed by names of heathen gods), and there are various possible identifications. Some have identified the place with Stora Hov, 23 kilometres south-west of Skara, while if Sigvatr came from Sognefjorden, the reference could be to Hov, on the north-eastern shore of Randsfjorden in Norway (so, tentatively, Edqvist 1943, 65), and if he passed to the east of Lake Vänern, the reference would be to Hova, on the southern shore of Skagern, in Sweden (so Patzig 1930b, 90). Toll (1924, 551-2), supposing Sigvatr set out from Trondheimsfjorden, locates a Hov in the parish of Sødorp in Nordre Fron, Gudbrandsdalen, in Norway, and he presents evidence that the area remained heathen until a late date. (Locating Hof in Norway would have consequences for the interpretation of st. 14: see Note to [All].) (b) Others read hofs, a common noun referring to a heathen temple or cult site (e.g. Noreen 1922a, 75, followed by Jón Skaptason 1983, 85; Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ÍF 27, 137 n., though he capitalizes the word in the text; cf. Beckman 1923, 330-1). The Christian Sigvatr might have been expected to avoid such a site (so Finnur Jónsson 1932, 12; see also de Vries 1932-3, 169-70), though there is evidence for farms used for blót ‘ritual sacrifice’ (Lidén 1993, 639) as well as for specifically religious buildings (Kaliff 2007). — [2, 4] en spurðumk fyrir útan ‘but I made enquiries from outside’: Hellberg (1981a, 5-6) remarks that the clause could follow logically from either of the first two clauses in the stanza. Note that fyrir is to be construed with spurðumk, hence ‘I made enquiries’: see Skj B; NN §2472; ÍF 27. — [4] niðrlútt ‘down-bent’: It is difficult to determine the precise implication of the word, though it is reminiscent of niðrbjúgt (nef) ‘down-curved (nose)’ in Rþ 10/5 (NK 281) and Stefnir Lv 1/3 (see also Note ad loc.). (a) Here niðrlútt is regarded as qualifying nef ‘nose’ in l. 3. It could be a straightforward description of Sigvatr’s nose, or it could mean that he stoops to pry. For a somewhat similar construction, with an ironic adj. applied to a bodily feature, cf. Sigv Lv 13/3-4 hilmis haus ófalan ‘the not-for-sale skull of the ruler’. (b) Noreen (1923, 37) sees niðrlútt as an adverbial n.; so also seemingly ÍF 27, where Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson speculates that the door was low, and Sigvatr poked his nose into the opening above it. (c) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), Kock (Skald) and some others (including Fms) adopt the reading niðrlútr from 325VI and construe it with spurðumk ‘I enquired’ in l. 2. Jón Skaptason (1983, 85) reads niðrlútr and renders it ‘downcast’. — [6] sǫgðu ‘said’: The reading þǫgðu ‘were silent’ of Holm2 and others was apparently inspired by Orð gatk fæst af fyrðum ‘I got very little response from the people’ in l. 5 (Jón Helgason 1968, 46). — [8] heilagt ‘[it was] holy’: The meaning, as in Snorri’s prose, could be that the place was holy (so E. Noreen 1923, 30; de Vries 1932-3, 170; Jón Skaptason 1983, 85), or else that this was a holy day (so Ternström 1871; Skj B).

References

1. Bibliography
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3. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. Hellberg, Staffan. 1981a. ‘Kungarna i Sigvats diktning. Till studiet av skaldedikternas språk och stil’. SI 32, 3-22.
7. 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.
8. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
9. ÓH 1941 = Johnsen, Oscar Albert and Jón Helgason, eds. 1941. Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga: Den store saga om Olav den hellige efter pergamenthåndskrift i Kungliga biblioteket i Stockholm nr. 2 4^to med varianter fra andre håndskrifter. 2 vols. Det norske historiske kildeskriftfond skrifter 53. Oslo: Dybwad.
10. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
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13. Jón Skaptason. 1983. ‘Material for an Edition and Translation of the Poems of Sigvat Þórðarson, skáld’. Ph.D. thesis. State University of New York at Stony Brook. DAI 44: 3681A.
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16. Jón Helgason, ed. 1968. Skjaldevers. 3rd edn. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
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18. Edqvist, Torgny. 1943. ‘De geografiska problemen i Sigvat Tordssons Austrfararvísur’. NoB 31, 62-71.
19. Finnur Jónsson. 1932. Austrfararvísur. Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II. Hist.-filos. kl.1931, 1. Oslo: Dybwad.
20. Patzig, Hermann. 1930b. ‘Sigvats Ostfahrt’. ZDA 67, 87-96.
21. Ternström, Alfred. 1871. Om skalden Sighvat Thordsson och tolkning af hans Austrfararvísur, Vestrfararvísur och Knútsdrápa. Lund: Ohlsson.
22. Toll, Hans. 1924. ‘Sighvat skalds resa till Svithjod’. HT(N) 26 (5 ser. 5), 546-65.
23. Vries, Jan de. 1932-3. ‘Über Sigvats Álfablót-Strophen’. APS 7, 169-80.
24. Hkr 1777-1826 = Schöning, Gerhard et al., eds. 1777-1826. Heimskringla edr Noregs konunga-sögor. 6 vols. Copenhagen: Stein.
25. Hkr 1868 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1868. Heimskringla eller Norges kongesagaer af Snorre Sturlassøn. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger & Christie.
26. Lidén, Hans-Emil. 1993. ‘Temples, Heathen’. In MedS, 639-40.
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29. ÓH 1853 = Munch, P. A. and C. R. Unger, eds. 1853. Saga Olafs konungs ens helga. Christiania (Oslo): Det kongelige norske Fredriks Universitet.
30. Internal references
31. (forthcoming), ‘ Heimskringla, Óláfs saga helga (in Heimskringla)’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=152> (accessed 25 April 2024)
32. Not published: do not cite ()
33. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Lausavísur 13’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 715.
34. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2012, ‘Stefnir Þorgilsson, Lausavísur 1’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 448.