ÞGísl Búdr 11^I

Sté fyrir húf hesti
hrófs inn þrekmesti
gœðir gunnskára;
gladdisk naðr sára.
Niðr kom bens bára;
Búi nam sér hvára
— ferð hykk friðar misstu —
frœkn í hǫnd kistu.

{Inn þrekmesti gœðir {gunnskára}} sté fyrir húf {hesti hrófs}; {naðr sára} gladdisk. {Bára bens} kom niðr; frœkn Búi nam kistu í hvára hǫnd sér; hykk ferð misstu friðar.

{The most powerful endower {of battle-gulls}} [RAVENS/EAGLES > WARRIOR] leapt from the hull {of the horse of the boat-shed} [SHIP]; {the snake of wounds} [SWORD] was gladdened. {The wave of the wound} [BLOOD] poured down; the valiant Búi took a chest in each of his hands; I think men missed out on peace.

Mss: 61(20rb), 53(16vb), 54(16vb), Bb(27ra) (ÓT)

Readings: [1] Sté: so 53, 54, Bb, steig 61;    húf: hof 53    [3] gœðir: ‘giedir’ 54    [5] Niðr: viðr 54;    bens bára: byrs bára 61, bensára 53, 54, Bb    [7] hykk: ‘hysk’ 54, Bb    [8] hǫnd: hǫnd sér 53, 54, Bb

Editions: Skj AI, 555, Skj BI, 538, Skald I, 261; Fms 1, 178, Fms 12, 44-5, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 194-5 (ch. 90); Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 30, 82. 

Context: Eiríkr jarl’s men board Búi Vésetason’s ship; Þorsteinn miðlangr gives Búi a serious head-wound and is then cut in two by Búi. Búi takes up two chests full of gold and calls to his men to abandon ship; he leaps overboard with the treasure chests.

Notes: [4] naðr sára ‘the snake of wounds [SWORD]’: (a) This is attested in each of the extant mss and is retained here. As subject of gladdisk ‘was gladdened’, the sword is slightly personified, which is unusual, but is matched in st. 6/3 (see Note). (b) Fms retained naðr sára, glossing it as hræfuglinn ‘the carrion bird’. (c) In SHI 1, 206, Skj B and Skald, naðr is emended to nagr ‘bird’, resulting in a kenning for a bird of battle, which would be more natural in the context (and see TorfE Lv 3/7 and Note for a parallel involving nagr). CVC: nagr also regards naðr as a misspelling for nagr and suggests that the bird is a magpie. — [5] bára bens ‘the wave of the wound [BLOOD]’: Though not strictly an emendation, the reading bens bára is a conjectural combination of elements from byrs bára (61) and bensára or ben sára (53, 54, Bb). Neither ms. reading makes sense, and ‑sára appears to be a case of dittography (cf. l. 4 sára ‘of wounds’), while bens bára, adopted in previous eds (Fms 12, Skj B, Skald, Ólafur Halldórsson 2000) gives good sense. Ben ‘wound’ is more commonly a f. noun whose gen. form is benjar, but here it is n. with gen. sg. form in -s (cf. ANG §382); this may also have contributed to the presumed corruption. Bens is a suitable determinant for the blood-kenning required by the context (cf. Meissner 206-7), while the 61 reading byrs ‘of the favouring wind’ is not, unless byrr is assumed, exceptionally, to be a heiti for ‘battle’. — [6] sér ‘his’: Dat. sg. of the refl. 3rd pers. pron. This is taken here as a poss. with l. 8 hǫnd ‘hand’. Skj B instead reads (in prose order) nam sér kistu í hvára hǫnd ‘he seized for himself a chest in each hand’. An additional sér follows hǫnd in 53, 54, Bb, but it adds a syllable that is surplus to the metre’s requirements and is omitted in 61.

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. 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. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
6. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
8. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
9. SHI = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1828-46. Scripta historica islandorum de rebus gestis veterum borealium, latine reddita et apparatu critico instructa, curante Societate regia antiquariorum septentrionalium. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp etc. and London: John & Arthur Arch.
10. Ólafur Halldórsson. 2000a. Danish Kings and the Jomsvikings in the Greatest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason. London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
11. Internal references
12. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Torf-Einarr Rǫgnvaldsson, Lausavísur 3’ 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. 134.