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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sturl Frag 1III

Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir (ed.) 2017, ‘Sturla Þórðarson, Fragments 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 392.

Sturla ÞórðarsonFragments
12

introduction

This fragment (Sturl Frag 1), edited by Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir, is in hrynhent metre and has therefore usually been considered a part of Sturla Þórðarson’s poem Hrynhenda (Sturl HrynII; c. 1263), composed in honour of the Norwegian king Hákon Hákonarson (Fidjestøl 1982, 163-4). Most earlier editors (Skj; Skald) have placed it at the end of that poem since it is impossible to determine where it belongs, or whether it does indeed belong there, since it is not preserved in Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar like the twenty-one stanzas one can safely attribute to Hryn. The couplet is not included in Konráð Gíslason’s edition of the poem although he believed it must have been a part of Hryn (Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, I, 69). The fragment, which describes ships at sea, is found only in the Y redaction of LaufE. It is preserved in mss 2368ˣ (main ms.) and 743ˣ, and it is attributed to Sturla Þórðarson in both mss. The couplet was copied from a LaufE ms. in RE 1665(Hh3), which has no independent value.

text and translation

Rísa tóku langir laukar
lindar álfs við gymi sjálfan.

Langir laukar {álfs lindar} tóku rísa við sjálfan gymi.
 
‘The long masts of the shield’s elf [WARRIOR] began to rise against the sea itself.

notes and context

The couplet is cited among several other stanzas to illustrate kennings for ‘man’ with a mythical base-word, here, álfr lindar ‘the shield’s elf’.

sources

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.

editions and texts

Skj: Sturla Þórðarson, 3. Hrynhenda 22: AII, 108, BII, 118, Skald II, 63, NN §2287; SnE 1848-87, II, 628; LaufE 1979, 371.

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