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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ÞjóðA Magn 3II

Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Stanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi 3’ 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. 90-1.

Þjóðólfr ArnórssonStanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi
234

Gær sák grjóti stóru
— gein hauss fyrir — steini
— fóra fylking þeira
fast — harðliga kastat.
Ofan keyrðum vér — orðum
jǫrð muna Sveinn of varða —
(staðar hefr stafn í miðju)
strandhǫgg (numit landi).

Gær sák stóru grjóti, steini, kastat harðliga; hauss gein fyrir; fylking þeira fóra fast. Vér keyrðum strandhǫgg ofan; Sveinn muna of varða jǫrð orðum; stafn hefr numit staðar í miðju landi.

Yesterday I saw massive stones, rock, hurled mightily; a skull gaped in their path; their troop did not advance strongly. We herded cattle for slaughter down to the shore; Sveinn will not defend the land with words [alone]; the prow has anchored midway along the coast.

Mss: (515r), 39(17rb), F(40vb), E(8v), J2ˣ(252v) (Hkr); H(11v), Hr(10va) (H-Hr)

Readings: [1] Gær: ‘Gaurr’ E, J2ˣ, Geir Hr    [2] gein: grein 39, ‘[…]’ H;    hauss fyrir: ‘hau[…]rir’ 39    [3] fóra: ‘for a’ F, ‘færa’ E, J2ˣ, H, Hr    [4] kastat: ‘[…]ð’ 39    [5] keyrðum vér (‘kørðum ver’): keyrðu vér 39, F, E, J2ˣ, keyrandum H, Hr    [6] Sveinn: ‘S.’ 39, Hr, Sveini J2ˣ, Sveins H;    varða: verða Hr    [7] staðar: staðr H, Hr;    miðju: miðjum H, Hr    [8] strand‑: ‘stran’ E

Editions: Skj AI, 377, Skj BI, 347, Skald I, 174, NN §§1139, 1853C; Hkr 1893-1901, III, 58, IV, 198, ÍF 28, 52, Hkr 1991, 590 (Mgóð ch. 30), F 1871, 187, E 1916, 28; Fms 6, 79-80 (Mgóð ch. 38), Fms 12, 135.

Context: (Cf. previous two Contexts.) Sveinn Úlfsson flees with a remnant of his following to Sjælland (Selund, Zealand). Magnús Óláfsson’s men go ashore there and the next morning slaughter cattle on the beach.

Notes: [1, 2] stóru grjóti, steini; fyrir ‘massive stones, rock; in their path’: Grjót may well have its common collective sense. The syntactic role of the two dat. references to stone (grjóti) or rock (steini) is not certain, although it is clear that one or both of them must be governed by kastat ‘hurled’ (l. 4). The main possibilities are the following: (a) Fyrir is here taken as an adv. meaning ‘in front, ahead [of them], in [their] path’, while grjóti stóru and steini are in apposition, both governed by kastat (so Kock in Skald and NN). (b) To construe Gær sák stóru grjóti kastat harðliga; hauss gein fyrir steini ‘Yesterday I saw massive stones hurled mightily; a skull gaped open before a rock’ (so also ÍF 28; Hkr 1991) makes good sense, but fyrir would be problematic, since the monosyllabic form fyr would be usual when the prep. is immediately followed by the noun phrase it governs. Only fyr is required in prepositional use in ÞjóðA Magn 13/5, 14/5, 14/7, Frag 1/3, Har 1/3, contrasted with the disyllabic fyrir in adverbial usage in ÞjóðA Lv 3/4 and 9/7. (Konráð Gíslason noted the rarity of fyrir as prep. and considered emending to ginu hausar fyr steinum ‘skulls gaped before rocks’, but drew back from that; Nj 1875-8, II, 855-6.) (b) Fyrir could govern grjóti stóru, in which case the disyllabic form is due to the fact that it does not directly precede that phrase (cf. yfir in st. 4/6), while kastat governs steini, hence sák steini kastat harðliga; hauss gein fyrir stóru grjóti ‘I saw rocks hurled mightily; skulls gaped open before great stones’ (so Finnur Jónsson in Hkr 1893-1901 and Skj B). However, the prose w. o. assumed by this construal is non-obvious at best, and the same problem arises as for (b). — [3] fóra ‘did not advance’: The variant ‘færa’ has considerable support, but does not make obvious sense in context, whereas fóra supplies the sg. verb that seems to be required by fylking ‘troop’. Fms 12 took an entirely different approach, reading fór á as two words: …grjóti, (sem) fór fast á fylking þeirra ‘stones, [which] pelted hard onto their troop’, but see Konráð Gíslason (loc. cit.) for a refutation of this. — [5, 8] strandhǫgg ofan ‘cattle for slaughter down to the shore’: Strandhǫgg n., only here in poetry, is lit. ‘shore-slaughter’, performed when coastal raiders drive cattle down to a beach and slaughter them for food. The adv. ofan ‘down’ has its usual sense.

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. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
  5. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  6. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  7. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
  8. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
  9. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
  10. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
  11. E 1916 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1916. Eirspennill: AM 47 fol. Nóregs konunga sǫgur: Magnús góði – Hákon gamli. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske historiske kildeskriftskommission.
  12. Internal references
  13. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Lausavísur 3’ 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. 167-8.
  14. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Stanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi 13’ 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, p. 101.
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