ÞGísl Búdr 8^I

Búa frák greitt ganga
— gladdi svanr Hanga —
— vǫkt vas gǫll geira —
gegnum lið þeira.

Frák Búa ganga greitt gegnum lið þeira; {svanr Hanga} gladdi; {gǫll geira} vas vǫkt.

I have heard that Búi went straight through their troop; {the swan of Hangi <= Óðinn>} [RAVEN] was gladdened; {the shriek of spears} [BATTLE] was roused.

Mss: 61(20ra), 53(16va), 54(16rb), Bb(26vb) (ÓT)

Readings: [3] vǫkt: vǫkr 54, Bb    [4] gegnum: í gegnum Bb

Editions: Skj AI, 554, Skj BI, 537, Skald I, 261; Fms 1, 175, Fms 12, 43-4, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 191 (ch. 90); Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28, 80. 

Context: Hákon jarl thinks it is unlikely he will prevail in the battle and his men begin to retreat. It is said by some that he goes ashore and sacrifices his seven-year-old son Erlingr; meanwhile, Búi Vésetason and Eiríkr jarl engage in a bitter fight.

Notes: [2] svanr … gladdi ‘the swan … was gladdened’: All mss have this reading, in which gladdi is 3rd pers. sg. pret. indic. of gleðja, and it is retained here, but the construction is unusual. The verb is normally transitive, and previous eds have supplied a direct object by emending to svan, hence ‘he gladdened the swan…’ (so Skj B, followed in Skald). Alternatively, one could expect the sense ‘was gladdened’ to be expressed by m. v. gladdisk, and Fms (tentatively; also Wisén 1870, 65 and Ólafur Halldórsson 2000) emends accordingly. — [2] Hanga ‘of Hangi <= Óðinn>’: (a) Hangi is one of the many names of Óðinn, among whose attributes are two ravens (Grí 20; SnE 2005, 32-3). Meissner 121 takes Hanga thus here and in three other raven-kennings, and his list includes three further kennings with svanr ‘swan’ qualified by other Óðinn-heiti. (b) The noun hangi m. also means ‘hanged man, gallows-corpse’ and the kenning ‘swan of the gallows-corpse’ could alternatively be taken as a variant on the pattern ‘bird of the slain/corpse’, cf. haukar hræs ‘hawks of the corpse’ in st. 7/1 and further examples in Meissner 122. Hangi is taken as ‘hanged man’ in this and three similar raven-kennings in LP: hangi . — [4] lið þeira ‘their troop’: The pl. poss. pron. refers to the two jarls, Hákon and Eiríkr.

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. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
8. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
9. Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1870. Úrval af norrænum fornkvæðum handa hinum bókmennta-iðkendum. Lund: Berling.
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. Not published: do not cite ()