FriðÞ Lv 8^VIII (Frið 8)

Mjök drekkr á mik;         mær mun kløkkva,
ef ek skal søkkva         í svana brekku,
— austr er orðinn         í Elliða —
þó lá blæja         á bliki nökkut.

Drekkr mjök á mik; mær mun kløkkva, ef ek skal søkkva í {brekku svana}, þó lá blæja nökkut á bliki; austr er orðinn í Elliða.

My ship is taking on a great deal of water; the young woman will sob, if I must sink in {the hillside of swans} [WAVE], although bed-linen lay ableaching somewhat; baling has taken place on board Elliði.

Mss: 510(93r), 568ˣ(100v), 27ˣ(135r), papp17ˣ(359r), 109a IIˣ(147r), 1006ˣ(583), 173ˣ(85r) (Frið)

Readings: [2] mær: ‘Mornun’ 568ˣ, mærin papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ;    mun: om. 568ˣ    [4] svana: ‘sauna’ 568ˣ, 27ˣ, 109a IIˣ    [5] austr er orðinn: austr papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ    [6] í Elliða: om. papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ    [7] þó lá (‘þola’): þó bo‑ 568ˣ, þar sem papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ;    blæja: so 568ˣ, 27ˣ, ‘blærra’ 510, blæjan papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ    [8] á bliki nökkut: so 27ˣ, á blik nökkut 510, bliki mikit 568ˣ, lá á bliki papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 270-1, Skj BII, 293, Skald II, 154, NN §§2386, 2994A, 3193; Falk 1890, 73, Frið 1893, 13, 44, 71, Frið 1901, 20, Frið 1914, 12-13; Edd. Min. 98.

Context: A huge sea towers over the men in Elliði and they all bale out the ship furiously.

Notes: [All]: This stanza is in both A and B recensions, but ll. 5-8 differ considerably between them. The sense of the first four lines is paralleled in Friðþjófs rímur III, 20. In the B recension mss, ll. 5-6 are effectively absent, and austr (l. 5) is taken with the B mss’ version of ll. 7-8, to mean ‘east’ (rather than ‘baling’), these lines then having the sense austr þar sem blæjan lá á bliki ‘[the young woman will sob] in the east where the bed-linen lay ableaching’. This is unlikely to be the original sense of these lines, which is probably represented by the rather garbled text of the A redaction mss. The metre is fornyrðislag, with end rhyme in ll. 2-3. — [All] þó lá blæja nökkut á bliki ‘although bed-linen lay ableaching somewhat’: The sense of ll. 7-8 in the B mss is discussed in Note to [All] above. It is difficult to make sense of the A mss, but the lines must refer to the subject of Frið  1/7-8, q. v. Edd. Min. and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) emend the n. nökkut (or mikit ‘much, greatly’ in 568ˣ) of the A mss to nökkur ‘some’ to agree with blæja ‘bed-linen’ (l. 7), Finnur translating mange lagner lå til blegning (derfor traf F. ikke Ingeborg) ‘many bed-sheets lay ableaching (therefore F. did not meet Ingeborg)’. Kock, on the other hand, emends blæja (l. 7) to blæju, having understood þó as ‘washed’ (pret. of þvá) and lá (earlier lô) as ‘wave’; cf. NN §2386. Frið 1901 combines the A and B mss’ texts in ll. 5-8. — [1] drekkr mjök á mik ‘my ship is taking on a great deal of water’: The impersonal construction drekkr á e-n means ‘one ships a sea, takes on a great deal of water over the sides of the ship’. — [4] í brekku svana ‘in the hillside of swans [WAVE]’: Possibly a sea-kenning, cf. ESk Frag 9/2^III strindar svana ‘of the land of swans [SEA]’, but more likely a kenning for a wave, in which the base-word is a term for hill or mountain; cf. SnSt Ht 76/5, 8^III hríðfeld fjǫll svana ‘the stormy mountains of swans [WAVES]’ and Ht 83/4^III svanfjalla ‘of swan-mountains [WAVES]’, as well as st. 7/6 above.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
6. Frið 1893 = Larsson, Ludvig, ed. 1893b. Sagan ock rimorna om Friðþiófr hinn frækni. SUGNL 22. Copenhagen: Malmström.
7. Frið 1901 = Larsson, Ludvig, ed. 1901. Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna. ASB 9. Halle: Niemeyer.
8. Frið 1914 = Wenz, Gustaf, ed. 1914. Die Friðþjófssaga in ihrer Überlieferung untersucht und der ältesten Fassung kritisch herausgegeben. Halle: Niemeyer.
9. Falk, Hjalmar. 1890. ‘Om Friðþjófs saga’. ANF 6, 60-102.
10. Internal references
11. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 190. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=8> (accessed 25 April 2024)
12. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Einarr Skúlason, Fragments 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 160.
13. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 76’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1187.
14. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 80’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1191.