Bjǫrn Lv 1VIII (Frið 9)
Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna 9 (Bjǫrn, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 204.
Erat ‘It it not’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
[1] Erat: so 27ˣ, papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, er em at 510, væra 568ˣ
sem ‘as if’
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sem (conj.): as, which
ekkja ‘a woman’
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1. ekkja (noun f.; °-u; -ur, gen. ekkna): widow, woman
[1] ekkja: so 568ˣ, papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, ekki 510, ‘ölga’ 27ˣ
á ‘to’
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3. á (prep.): on, at
[2] á þik vili drekka: so papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, ‘at austur fir oss drekkie’ 510, at ek drekka 568ˣ, ‘aur at drecka’ 27ˣ
notes
[2]: Á þik vili drekka is the reading of the B redaction mss. The text of the A mss is inconsistent, but may allude to the women of Baldrshagi situated east of where the men now are on their Orkney voyage. Skj B presents the following text of ll. 1-2: Erat sem ekkja | austr á þik drekki … ‘It is not as if a woman is drinking to you in the east …’.
þik ‘you’
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þú (pron.; °gen. þín, dat. þér, acc. þik): you
[2] á þik vili drekka: so papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, ‘at austur fir oss drekkie’ 510, at ek drekka 568ˣ, ‘aur at drecka’ 27ˣ
notes
[2]: Á þik vili drekka is the reading of the B redaction mss. The text of the A mss is inconsistent, but may allude to the women of Baldrshagi situated east of where the men now are on their Orkney voyage. Skj B presents the following text of ll. 1-2: Erat sem ekkja | austr á þik drekki … ‘It is not as if a woman is drinking to you in the east …’.
vili ‘would want’
(not checked:)
vilja (verb): want, intend
[2] á þik vili drekka: so papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, ‘at austur fir oss drekkie’ 510, at ek drekka 568ˣ, ‘aur at drecka’ 27ˣ
notes
[2]: Á þik vili drekka is the reading of the B redaction mss. The text of the A mss is inconsistent, but may allude to the women of Baldrshagi situated east of where the men now are on their Orkney voyage. Skj B presents the following text of ll. 1-2: Erat sem ekkja | austr á þik drekki … ‘It is not as if a woman is drinking to you in the east …’.
drekka ‘to drink’
(not checked:)
2. drekka (verb; °drekkr; drakk, drukku; drukkinn/drykkinn): drink
[2] á þik vili drekka: so papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, ‘at austur fir oss drekkie’ 510, at ek drekka 568ˣ, ‘aur at drecka’ 27ˣ
notes
[2]: Á þik vili drekka is the reading of the B redaction mss. The text of the A mss is inconsistent, but may allude to the women of Baldrshagi situated east of where the men now are on their Orkney voyage. Skj B presents the following text of ll. 1-2: Erat sem ekkja | austr á þik drekki … ‘It is not as if a woman is drinking to you in the east …’.
björt ‘a bright’
(not checked:)
bjartr (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): bright
kennings
björt baugvara‘a bright ring-bearer ’
= WOMAN
a bright ring-bearer → WOMAN
baug ‘ring’
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baugr (noun m.; °dat. -i/-; -ar): ring < baugvara (noun f.): [ring-bearer]
[3] baugvara: ‘baugvarit’ 568ˣ, 27ˣ
kennings
björt baugvara‘a bright ring-bearer ’
= WOMAN
a bright ring-bearer → WOMAN
notes
[3] baugvara ‘a ring-bearer [WOMAN]’: Or possibly ‘a ring-adorner’. This hap. leg. cpd is treated as a woman-kenning, but the meaning of the second element is uncertain. Mss 568ˣ and 27ˣ have the p. p. -varið which would make better sense, if the second element derives from verja ‘wrap, dress, adorn’ (cf. HHund II 35/7, NK 158, brúðr baugvarið ‘woman adorned with rings’), and this reading is adopted in Skj B and Skald, though the end-rhyme with fara (l. 4) is then lost. The cpd in -vara may be a secondary formation derived from -varið.
vara ‘bearer’
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4. verja (verb): ? < baugvara (noun f.): [ring-bearer]
[3] baugvara: ‘baugvarit’ 568ˣ, 27ˣ
kennings
björt baugvara‘a bright ring-bearer ’
= WOMAN
a bright ring-bearer → WOMAN
notes
[3] baugvara ‘a ring-bearer [WOMAN]’: Or possibly ‘a ring-adorner’. This hap. leg. cpd is treated as a woman-kenning, but the meaning of the second element is uncertain. Mss 568ˣ and 27ˣ have the p. p. -varið which would make better sense, if the second element derives from verja ‘wrap, dress, adorn’ (cf. HHund II 35/7, NK 158, brúðr baugvarið ‘woman adorned with rings’), and this reading is adopted in Skj B and Skald, though the end-rhyme with fara (l. 4) is then lost. The cpd in -vara may be a secondary formation derived from -varið.
biði ‘would ask’
(not checked:)
biðja (verb; °biðr; bað, báðu; beðinn (beiþ- Martin¹ 573, bỏþ- HákEirsp 661, cf. ed. intr. xl)): ask for, order, pray
nær ‘close’
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nær (adv.): near, almost; when
fara ‘to come’
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fara (verb; ferr, fór, fóru, farinn): go, travel
eru ‘are’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
sitkak ‘I am not sitting’
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sitja (verb): sit
[6] sitkak (‘sitka ek’): so 568ˣ, ‘ef soka’ 510, ‘sickiu’ 27ˣ, sikkuð papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
notes
[6] sitkak ‘I am not sitting’: Both Skj B and Skald and this edn adopt 568ˣ’s sitkak ‘I am not sitting [in a bath]’. The B redaction mss read sikkuð ‘sunken (?)’ which may possibly be a form of the p. p. of an unrecorded *sikka ‘sink’ (cf. Falk 1890, 74, who suggests a parallel with Norwegian dialect sikka ‘sink’). However, this interpretation then requires laug to be understood in the extended sense of ‘salt water, sea’.
laugu ‘a bath’
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laug (noun f.; °-ar; dat. -u/-; -ar): bath, hot spring
[6] í laugu: ekki lógi 27ˣ
bál ‘of the fire’
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bál (noun n.; °-s; -): fire < bálskorð (noun f.)
[7] bálskorð: ‘bilskorðs’ 510, ‘bilskord’ 568ˣ, ‘bil skortt’ 27ˣ, bil sterka papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
kennings
arma bálskorð,‘fire-prop of arms’
= WOMAN
the fire of arms, → GOLD
prop of the GOLD → WOMAN
bál ‘of the fire’
(not checked:)
bál (noun n.; °-s; -): fire < bálskorð (noun f.)
[7] bálskorð: ‘bilskorðs’ 510, ‘bilskord’ 568ˣ, ‘bil skortt’ 27ˣ, bil sterka papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
kennings
arma bálskorð,‘fire-prop of arms’
= WOMAN
the fire of arms, → GOLD
prop of the GOLD → WOMAN
skorð ‘prop’
(not checked:)
skorð (noun f.): prop < bálskorð (noun f.)
[7] bálskorð: ‘bilskorðs’ 510, ‘bilskord’ 568ˣ, ‘bil skortt’ 27ˣ, bil sterka papp17ˣ, 109a IIˣ, 1006ˣ, 173ˣ
kennings
arma bálskorð,‘fire-prop of arms’
= WOMAN
the fire of arms, → GOLD
prop of the GOLD → WOMAN
arma ‘of arms’
(not checked:)
1. armr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -i; -ar): arm
kennings
arma bálskorð,‘fire-prop of arms’
= WOMAN
the fire of arms, → GOLD
prop of the GOLD → WOMAN
arma ‘of arms’
(not checked:)
1. armr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -i; -ar): arm
kennings
arma bálskorð,‘fire-prop of arms’
= WOMAN
the fire of arms, → GOLD
prop of the GOLD → WOMAN
bítr ‘stinging’
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bíta (verb; °bítr; beit, bitu; bitinn): bite
[8] bítr: so all others, birtiz 510
mér ‘my’
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ek (pron.; °mín, dat. mér, acc. mik): I, me
í ‘are’
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í (prep.): in, into
hvarma ‘eye-lids’
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hvarmr (noun m.; °dat. -i; -ar): eyelid
Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses
Friðþjófr’s foster-brother Bjǫrn wonders whether the women of Sogn will weep over him, while the storm continues to rage. He speaks this stanza.
This is the only runhent stanza in Frið, though the end-rhyme of ll. 1-2 is not exact. The text is very difficult to make sense of in the A redaction mss, and not very easy in the others. It is clear that a great deal of scribal corruption has affected the stanza’s transmission, with the consequence that there are a number of possible interpretations of the various readings in both redactions. Because the A mss are particularly hard to understand, readings from the B mss have been selected in ll. 1 and 2. Even so, the interpretation offered here is tentative. Line 7 is particularly difficult to understand. Kock (NN §1474) suggests a possible parallel between this stanza and Krm 20, in which some of the same vocabulary occurs (ekkja ‘woman’, laug ‘bath’), and where a contrast is drawn between men fighting in battle and a woman bringing basins of warm water. The present stanza (in the reading offered here) seems to suggest that the bitter struggle at sea that Friðþjófr and his men now encounter has made them unattractive to the women back home, and this is consistent with Bjǫrn’s expressed scepticism in the prose text of both redactions. — [7-8]: The interpretation of these lines is uncertain. The first word or words of l. 7 have not been authoritatively explained, and most eds emend, following the B redaction, to either bilar sterka arma ‘[my] strong arms fail’ (Frið 1901, 21) or bilar styrk arma ‘the strength of my arms fails’ (Skj B). The prose of the B text endorses the notion that baling the ship is hard work for the men’s arms. Relying on the A text, Wenz (Frið 1914, 13) has bilskorð arma but does not explain what it may mean. All known compounds in which -skorð ‘prop, support’ is the second element are women-kennings in which the first element denotes either ornament or clothing (cf. LP: skorð). Hence the bil- of the cpd’s first element is anomalous, as the word’s normal meaning is ‘delay, moment’. Edd. Min. emends to bálskorð ‘fire-prop’, which, together with arma ‘of arms’, can be understood as an inverted, two-part woman-kenning, ‘prop of the fire of arms’ [GOLD > WOMAN]’. This seems the only feasible interpretation of the A mss’ readings, and has been adopted here. Kock (Skald; NN §1474) has Bil skortir arma, in which Bil is a goddess-heiti (cf. LP: Bil) and skortir is an emendation, depending on 27ˣ’s reading ‘skortt’, with the second <t> supposedly mistaken by the scribe for an <ir> abbreviation. Kock does not, however, explain what he thinks ll. 7-8 mean in this interpretation. In this edn the woman-kenning arma bálskorð is taken as a direct address to a woman, and the speaker complains of his miserable situation, not taking a warm bath, but being buffeted by salty seas, which are stinging his eyes. With Skj B, l. 8 is understood as an impersonal construction, bítr mér í hvarma, lit. ‘it bites me on the eyelids, my eyes are stinging [with the salt sea]’. The alternative is to take the kenning (?) of l. 7 as the subject of the verb bítr ‘bites’ (l. 8), ‘the woman bites me on the eyelids’, but the scenario conjured up by this interpretation is either ludicrous or improbable, unless one imagines the hostile sea-deity Rán as the kenning referent (cf. Frið 11/5-6).
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