ÞGísl Búdr 9^I

Hagl vá hvert eyri;
hraut á lǫg dreyri
— blóð þó bens ôrum —
ór bragna sôrum.
Þar fell valr víða;
vé sá gylld ríða;
barðisk sveit snarla
á snekkjum jarla.

Hvert hagl vá eyri; dreyri hraut á lǫg ór sôrum bragna; blóð þó {ôrum bens}. Valr fell þar víða; sá gylld vé ríða; sveit barðisk snarla á snekkjum jarla.

Each hailstone weighed an ounce; gore spurted onto the sea from the wounds of men; blood washed {the oars of the wound} [SWORDS]. The slain fell there widely; [one] saw gilded standards sway; the company fought boldly on the warships of the jarls.

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

Readings: [2] lǫg: ‘lo’ Bb    [3] bens ôrum: beimsôrum 53, beinsôrum 54, Bb    [5] Þar: þó 53, 54, Bb;    valr: vals Bb    [6] gylld: ‘gulld’ 53, gild 54, Bb;    ríða: hríða Bb

Editions: Skj AI, 555, Skj BI, 537-8, Skald I, 261; Fms 1, 175, Fms 12, 44, ÓT 1958-2000, I, 192 (ch. 90); Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 28, 81.

Context: Hákon returns to his ship and urges on his men; a great storm blows up to the disadvantage of the Jómsvíkingar; each hailstone is so large it weighs an ounce.

Notes: [All]: Bb has numerous corrupt readings. — [3] ôrum bens ‘the oars of the wound [SWORDS]’: This (bens ôrum in the Text) is an attested sword-kenning pattern (Meissner 153); the variant beinsôrum (so 54, Bb) ‘bone-wounds’ does not give good sense and duplicates sôrum in l. 4. — [4]: The adverbial phrase is taken with l. 2 in this edn. It could alternatively qualify l. 3 (so Ólafur Halldórsson 2000, 81). — [8] snekkjum ‘the warships’: Cf. ÞjóðA Magnfl 2/2, 3^II, where a ship referred to as snekkja is also þvítǫgt skip ‘thirty-benched ship’, and Note. 

References

1. Bibliography
2. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
6. Ólafur Halldórsson. 2000a. Danish Kings and the Jomsvikings in the Greatest Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason. London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
8. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Magnússflokkr 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 65-6.