Anon Leið 27^VII

Sinn veitti dag dróttinn
dýr tôkn himins stýrir,
lýð þás lítlu brauði
lofkvaddan goð saddi.
Rǫskr vann fljótt af fiskum
friðkennandi tvennum
fjǫlða lýðs ok fríðum
fimm hleifum vel reifan.

Dróttinn, {stýrir himins}, veitti dýr tôkn dag sinn, þás goð saddi lofkvaddan lýð lítlu brauði. {Rǫskr friðkennandi} vann fljótt fjǫlða lýðs vel reifan af tvennum fiskum ok fimm fríðum hleifum.

The Lord, {steerer of heaven} [= God], granted precious tokens on his day, when God fed the famous multitude with little bread. {The valiant peace-bringer} [= God (= Christ)] quickly made a multitude of people very happy with two fishes and five beautiful loaves.

Mss: B(10v-11r), 624(89), 399a-bˣ

Readings: [4] ‑kvaddan: so 624, 399a‑bˣ, ‘‑[...]ddan’ B    [7] fríðum: ‘fyrdum’ 624    [8] hleifum: ‘leife’ 624;    reifan: reifa B, ‘refi’ added in margin 624

Editions: Skj AI, 623, Skj BI, 629, Skald I, 306, NN §§1845, 2142; Sveinbjörn Egilsson 1844, 64-5, Rydberg 1907, 8, Attwood 1996a, 66-7, 177.

Notes: [All]: The order of sts 27 and 28 is reversed in B, though marginal notes in the scribal hand indicate the correct order, which is confirmed by the content of the sts. — [1]: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), followed by Kock (Skald), emends to Sín veitti dag dróttins, construing sín with dýr tkn (l. 2) ‘his precious tokens’. Dróttins is construed with dag, to give himins stýrir veitti dag dróttins sín dýr tkn ‘the steerer of heaven granted his precious tokens on the day of the Lord’. — [2] stýrir himins ‘steerer of heaven [= God]’: God-kennings involving stýrir m. ‘steerer’ are a common feature of the image-structure of Leið. Cf. stýrir aldar ‘steerer of men’ 3/5; stýrir alls tírar ‘steerer of all glory’ 24/3-4; stýrir heims ‘steerer of the world’ 14/5. — [8] reifan: Finnur Jónsson emended B’s reifa ‘to enrich, present with’ to reifan, m. acc. sg. of reifr ‘glad, cheerful’, agreeing with fjǫlða (l. 7) and this emendation is accepted here. Kock (NN §2142) construed B’s reifa with vann (l. 5), to give the sense ‘succeeded in enriching’, but vinna is nowhere attested with the inf., other than in Kock’s own readings proposed in this note.

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. Attwood, Katrina. 1996a. ‘The Poems of MS AM 757a 4to: An Edition and Contextual Study’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Leeds.
6. Rydberg, Hugo, ed. 1907. ‘Die geistlichen Drápur und Dróttkvættfragmente des Cod. AM 757 4to.’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Lund. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1844. Fjøgur gømul kvæði. Boðsrit til að hlusta á þá opinberu yfirheyrslu í Bessastaða Skóla þann 22-29 mai 1844. Viðeyar Klaustri: prentuð af Helga Helgasyni, á kostnað Bessastaða Skóla. Bessastaðir: Helgi Helgason.
8. Internal references
9. Katrina Attwood 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Leiðarvísan’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 137-78. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1022> (accessed 26 April 2024)