Tindr Hákdr 11^I

Undr es þreytt, ef, Þundi,
þann kenndi val,’s sendir
golls samnaði, gumna
Goðmarr hræum fjarri.

Undr es þreytt, ef Goðmarr, fjarri hræum, kenndi þann val gumna, [e]s {sendir golls} samnaði Þundi.

A marvel is hard-won, if Gullmaren, remote from the corpses, saw the slain warriors [lit. slain of men] that {the dispatcher of gold} [GENEROUS MAN = Hákon] assembled for Þundr <= Óðinn>.

Mss: 510(62v) (Jvs)

Readings: [1] þreytt: ‘þrytt’ 510;    Þundi: ‘þrindi’ 510    [3] golls: golli 510;    samnaði: safnaðar 510    [4] Goðmarr: ‘godinnar’ 510

Editions: Skj AI, 147, Skj BI, 138, Skald I, 76, NN §§303C, 438; Fms 11, 140, Fms 12, 240, SHI 11, 129-31, Jvs 1879, 85-6.

Context: In Jvs, as for st. 10. It is followed by the comment So heiter fio[r]ðurinn ‘So the fjord was named’, evidently referring to Goðmarr (garbled as ‘godinnar’) in the stanza.

Notes: [All]: The helmingr as interpreted here appears to imply that (the people of) Gullmaren will not see their warriors again, since they have fallen far from home (see Note to l. 4 below), but the text is highly problematic. Editors are agreed on the emendation of ms. ‘þrytt’ to þreytt ‘hard-won’ in l. 1 and of ms. gulli (dat. sg.) to golls (gen. sg.) in l. 3. In this edn ms. sendir in l. 2, emended to sendi (3rd sg. pret. indic.) ‘sent’ by previous eds, is retained as the base-word in a kenning sendir golls ‘despatcher of gold [GENEROUS MAN]’ and ms. safnaðar in l. 3 is emended to samnaði ‘assembled’. Whether the verb is sendi or samnaði, it belongs in a rel. clause introduced by ms. er (normalised ’s), and this is metrically problematic since subordinate clauses do not normally begin after position 4 in a Type D4/E-line (see Gade 1995a, 88-9). To remove ’s by emendation, however, would produce a main clause that is difficult to accommodate in the helmingr. For the remaining problems, the solutions adopted by Finnur Jónsson in Skj are generally followed. A subject for kenndi ‘saw, recognised’, apparently lacking in the ms. text, is supplied from ‘goðinnar’ in l. 4, emended to Goðmarr ‘Gullmaren’ on the evidence of Jvs. This p. n. is qualified by the phrase fjarri hræum ‘far from the corpses’. The verb kenndi in turn has an object in val (m. acc. sg.) ‘slain’ and an indirect obj. of person benefiting in Þundi ‘Óðinn’ (emended from ms. ‘þrindi’), anticipated ahead of the rel. clause. For the reference to the sacrifice of the slain enemy to Óðinn, cf. Þhorn Harkv 12, Þjsk Hák 1/5, 8 and possibly st. 9/1-2 of this poem. A remaining difficulty is gumna ‘of men’, which seems redundant on any construal but is here tentatively grouped with val ‘slain’, thus lit. ‘slain of men’. Previous scholarship has attempted to solve the same problems in a variety of ways. (a) In his first treatment of this poem Finnur Jónsson (1886b, 354-5) emends ms. hræum (dat. pl.) ‘corpses’ to hræja, taken as the gen. pl. object of kenndi, and construes fjarri ‘far, afar’ as free-standing. These proposals he rescinds in Skj B, where he groups the words hræum gumna ‘with the corpses of men’ together. (b) Kock (NN §438, cf. §303C) proposes emending ms. ‘þrindi’ to Þrœndir ‘people of Trøndelag’, subject of kenndu ‘saw’ (3rd pers. pl. pret. indic., emended from kenndi), so as to avoid Finnur Jónsson’s tripartite division of l. 1. A reference to these people would accord with the statement in Jvs (1879, 64) that they were to be enlisted to resist the invaders. Kock also emends ‘godinnar’ in l. 4 to goðvarr ‘god-reverent’ (see further Note to l. 4). (c) Reichardt (1928, 204) noted that the difficulties of this helmingr had not been satisfactorily resolved, and it remains the case that no analysis is wholly convincing. The syntactic relation of the rel. clause to the rest of the helmingr assumed by all eds is difficult to parallel. — [3] samnaði ‘assembled’: Most eds accept the emendation samnandi ‘accumulator’, taking it with golls ‘of gold’, but the postulated agentive appears to lack parallels and the verb samna ‘collect, assemble’ is used elsewhere in relation to troops, but nowhere in relation to gold (LP: samna). — [4] Goðmarr ‘Gullmaren’: Finnur Jónsson (1886b, 355) identifies ms. ‘godinnar’ with the fjord Goðmarr á Ránríki (Gullmaren i Bohuslän; for Goðmar(r) = Gullmaren see Wahlberg 2003, 98). The general implication of the helmingr appears to be that Goðmarr was the home of many men who fought at Hjǫrungavágr (Liavågen) and did not survive to return home (cf. Sigv Nesv 11/1-4), being instead taken into the possession of Óðinn. It is possible that the Danish-Wendish force on their way north first gathered recruits in the densely settled Oslofjorden area, which at that time was in Danish hands, although some versions of the story of the Jómsvíkingar have them landing first at Jaðarr (Jæren), on the south-west coast of Norway (Jvs 1962, 49). Goðmarr is several hundred miles from Sunnmøre, which leads Guðbrandur Vigfússon (CPB I, 50, cf. II, 570) to posit a battle at Goðmarr itself, and Kock (NN §438) to ridicule the notion of corpses drifting so far southwards and then eastwards from Sunnmøre. This, however, may be the point: it was inconceivable that these corpses could find their way home from the distant location of the battle. The personification of the place Goðmarr as subject of kenndi ‘saw, knew, recognised’, posited by most eds, is unusual (though not quite unparalleled: cf. the laughing, then mourning hills imagined in Sigv Lv 24), and it might be that a pers. n. underlies the ms. reading here.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
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. Gade, Kari Ellen. 1995a. The Structure of Old Norse dróttkvætt Poetry. Islandica 49. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
8. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
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. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
11. Jvs 1879 = Petersens, Carl af, ed. 1879. Jómsvíkinga saga (efter Cod. AM. 510, 4:to) samt Jómsvíkinga drápa. Lund: Gleerup.
12. Jvs 1962 = Blake, N. F., ed. and trans. 1962. The Saga of the Jomsvikings. London etc.: Nelson.
13. Finnur Jónsson. 1886b. ‘Bidrag til en rigtigere forståelse af Tindr Hallkelssons vers’. ÅNOH, 309-68.
14. Wahlberg, Mats, ed. 2016. Svenskt ortnamnslexikon. 2nd rev. edn. Uppsala: Språk- och folkminnesinstitutet.
15. Internal references
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Jómsvíkinga saga’ 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. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=51> (accessed 26 April 2024)
17. Russell Poole (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Nesjavísur 11’ 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. 572.
18. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Lausavísur 24’ 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. 729.
19. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Þorbjǫrn hornklofi, Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál) 12’ 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. 107.
20. Kate Heslop (ed.) 2012, ‘Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson, Poem about Hákon 1’ 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. 369.