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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ÞjóðA Magn 12II

Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Stanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi 12’ 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. 99-100.

Þjóðólfr ArnórssonStanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi
111213

Svíðr of seggja búðir
— siklingr í her miklum
eyðir byggð sem bráðast —
bjartr eldr Danaveldi.
Móðr berr halr of heiði
halds Danmarkar skjǫldu;
vér hlutum sigr, en sárir
Sveins menn fyrir renna.

Bjartr eldr svíðr of búðir seggja Danaveldi; siklingr í miklum her eyðir byggð sem bráðast. Halr, móðr halds Danmarkar, berr skjǫldu of heiði; vér hlutum sigr, en menn Sveins renna sárir fyrir.

Bright fire flames across the dwellings of men in the realm of the Danes; the prince, in a great army, destroys the settlement with all haste. A warrior, weary of defending Denmark, carries shields across the heath; we won victory, but Sveinn’s men run wounded away.

Mss: (518r), papp18ˣ(222v), 39(17vb), F(41rb), E(9r), J2ˣ(255r) (Hkr); H(12v), Hr(11ra) (H-Hr)

Readings: [3] sem: enn J2ˣ    [5] Móðr: so all others, móðir Kˣ;    halr of (‘halr um’): hǫltum H, Hr;    heiði: ‘heíðe’ corrected from ‘haðe’ in the left margin in the same hand E    [6] halds: so 39, F, ‘haldr’ Kˣ, ‘hallz’ E, J2ˣ, hjaldrs H, ‘hialldus’ Hr

Editions: Skj AI, 378, Skj BI, 348, Skald I, 175, NN §§869, 3231; Hkr 1893-1901, III, 66-7, IV, 205, ÍF 28, 60-1, Hkr 1991, 596 (Mgóð ch. 33), F 1871, 190, E 1916, 31; Fms 6, 88 (Mgóð ch. 40), Fms 12, 139.

Context: The st. follows Magn 11 without interruption in most Hkr mss and with a brief link in J2ˣ and H-Hr.

Notes: [1-4]: As Kock pointed out (NN §869), the helmingr is capable of various construals, since the verbs svíðr ‘flames, burns’ (l. 1) and eyðir ‘destroys’ (l. 3) could be read with either siklingr ‘prince’ or bjartr eldr ‘bright fire’ as their subject, while sem bráðast ‘with all haste’ is an apo koinou adverbial that could qualify either cl. Although svíða occurs with human subjects (LP and Fritzner: svíða), however, the pairing svíðrbjartr eldr, and the arrangement of clauses shown above, seem the most likely. — [2, 4] í miklum her; Danaveldi ‘in a great army; in the realm of the Danes’: Finnur assumed that the prep. í ‘in’ governs, not the noun phrase that follows it (her miklum, which he takes as instr., ‘with a great army’) but the remote Danaveldi (Hkr 1893-1901 and Skj B). One can only agree with Kock (NN §869) that this is extremely strained; indeed the separation of unstressed proclitic prep. and noun is unparalleled, and it is not necessary, since dat. Danaveldi can alone mean ‘in the realm of the Danes’, as assumed here and by most eds. Danaveldi, as the sphere of operation in this set of sts, has been used in its editorial title in this edn. Whether the term Danaveldi is used differently from Danmarkar ‘Denmark’ (l. 6) is unclear; both at this period included Skåne (Skáney), now part of southern Sweden. — [6] halds Danmarkar ‘of defending Denmark’: (a) Skj A gives ‘hallz’ in F and 39, but the ‘d’ is clear in both (and is the reading given in Hkr 1893-1901, III, 67), and this helps to confirm halds as the most likely underlying reading. This is construed here with móðr ‘weary’, which can be qualified by af and the reason for weariness in the dat. (e.g. móðr mjök af gǫngu ‘very weary from walking’, cited in Fritzner: móðr adj.) but alternatively by a noun in the gen., here halds ‘of holding, defending’ (cf. föstumóðr ‘weary from fasting’, Anon Lil 45/2VII); this is the interpretation adopted in ÍF 28 and Hkr 1991, 594. (b) Hjaldrs ‘of battle’ in H and (slightly corrupted) in Hr is also attractive. It could be taken with móðr, giving ‘weary of/from battle’ (so Finnur Jónsson in Hkr 1893-1901 and Skj B), or alternatively with halr ‘man’ in l. 5 to form a term for ‘warrior’ (so NN §3231), but the stemma clearly shows it to be secondary.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  3. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
  4. Fms = Sveinbjörn Egilsson et al., eds. 1825-37. Fornmanna sögur eptir gömlum handritum útgefnar að tilhlutun hins norræna fornfræða fèlags. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
  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. 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.
  8. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
  9. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
  10. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
  11. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
  12. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
  13. E 1916 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1916. Eirspennill: AM 47 fol. Nóregs konunga sǫgur: Magnús góði – Hákon gamli. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske historiske kildeskriftskommission.
  14. Internal references
  15. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=4> (accessed 29 March 2024)
  16. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Hulda-Hrokkinskinna’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=84> (accessed 29 March 2024)
  17. Martin Chase (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Lilja 45’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 615.
  18. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Stanzas about Magnús Óláfsson in Danaveldi 11’ 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. 98-9.
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