Gauti Lv 1^VIII (Gautr 1)

These stanzas are found in the Dalafíflar section of Gautr and are presented as the direct speech of King Gauti and the backwoods family he encounters when he loses his way in the forest while out hunting. This family is terrified of doing anything or having anything done to them which would diminish their material wealth or, when it comes to procreation, of doing anything to increase their number, holding that this would reduce each member’s share of the wealth. After Gauti unexpectedly enters their house as an uninvited and unwelcome guest, his actions, directly or indirectly, cause most of the family members to commit suicide by hurling themselves off the ætternisstapi ‘ancestral cliff’. He also causes them grief by having sexual relations with the only outgoing and talkative member of the family, Snotra ‘Wise One’, who becomes the mother of his son Gautrekr.

All six stanzas are spoken by the male characters in this episode. The metre is ljóðaháttr and there is considerable variation in the prose and verse texts of the various witnesses. This is likely to point to the circulation of oral variants. The stanzas promote a dead-pan pragmatism on the part of their speakers, which highlights their absurd overreaction to their supposed misfortunes.

Skúa tvá,         er mér Skafnörtungr gaf,
        þvengjum er hann þá nam.
Ills manns         kveð ek aldri verða
        grandalausar gjafir.

Skúa tvá, er Skafnörtungr gaf mér, er hann nam þá þvengjum. Ek kveð gjafir ills manns verða aldri grandalausar.

The two shoes, which Skafnǫrtungr gave me, he took the laces from them. I say the gifts of an evil man are never without harm.

Mss: 590b-cˣ(2r), 152(197rb), papp11ˣ(3r), 567XIV γ(1r), 164hˣ(3r) (Gautr)

Readings: [1] Skúa: skó 152, papp11ˣ, 164hˣ    [2] er: om. 567XIV γ, 164hˣ;    Skafnörtungr gaf: gaf Skafnartungr gaf 152, gaf Skafnartungr with gaf added above the line in a different hand papp11ˣ, gaf Skafnartungr 567XIV γ, gaf Skafnörungr 164hˣ    [3] þvengjum er hann þá nam: so 152, papp11ˣ, þvengjum er hann þar nam 590b‑cˣ, þvengjum at hann þá nam 567XIV γ, þvengjum hann þá nam 164hˣ    [4] Ills manns: at ills manns 152, sjaldan verða 567XIV γ, 164hˣ    [5] kveð ek aldri verða: verða vands manns 567XIV γ, naums manns 164hˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 322, Skj BII, 342, Skald II, 184, NN §§1934, 3292; Gautr 1664, 9-10, FSN 3, 9, Gautr 1900, 6, 53, FSGJ 4, 6; Edd. Min. 121.

Context: When King Gauti wakes up in the morning, having forced himself upon the Dalafíflar household overnight, he asks the head of the household, called Skafnartungr, Skafnörtungr or Skafnörungr in most versions of Gautr, for a pair of shoes, as he had lost his own during his adventure in the forest the previous day. The man’s wordless response is to give him shoes but to pull out the laces first.

Notes: [1-3]: A trace of this motif also appears in Saxo’s account of the hero Starkaðr’s adventures. Saxo (Saxo 2015, I, vi. 5. 11, pp. 384-7) tells that Starkaðr travelled to Ireland, where the ruler was one Huglecus, who had the reputation for being so mean that, when he offered someone a pair of shoes, he first withdrew the laces, thereby turning the gift into an insult. — [2] Skafnörtungr ‘Skafnǫrtungr’: This man’s name is written in several ways in the mss, both in the prose and the verse, though the first element, skaf ‘peeled bark’, is largely constant (though Skapnartungr occurs in the prose of 152, Gautr 1900, 6 n. 13). Skaf was bark peeled from trees and used to feed animals, especially goats; cf. Sigv Lv 26/4^I. The second element in the cpd is written ‑nörtungr, ‑nartungr or ‑nörungr. The last of these forms probably derives from nœra (later næra) ‘nourish, feed’; thus the cpd skafnörungr should mean ‘bark-feeder’. The element ‑nörtungr may be related to the Icelandic nickname nörtr (CVC: nörtr; AEW: nǫrtr), which AEW connects to ModIcel. narta ‘nibble’, but Lind (1920-1, col. 270) prefers to regard nörtr as a form of knörtr, which he connects to ModNorw. knart ‘a small, thick-set person’. In Skj B Finnur Jónsson glosses the name Skafnörtungr as den, der ved at skrabe forminsker noget ‘someone who diminishes something by scraping at it’, but this explanation is not very convincing. Skafnörtungr seems more likely to mean ‘bark-nibbler’, following the etymology proposed by AEW, perhaps an allusion to the man’s rustic character. — [3] er hann nam þá þvengjum ‘he took the laces from them’: The verb nema ‘take’, when it means ‘deprive, take away’ takes the acc. of the thing or person deprived (here þá ‘[from] them’, referring to the shoes (skúa, l. 1), and the dat. of the object removed (here ‘the laces’, þvengjum); cf. Fritzner: nema, v. 5. — [3] er: Untranslatable anaphoric particle, sometimes used in the second or third line of a ljóðaháttr stanza to produce a caesura between it and the preceding line (cf. LT: ²er). Kock (NN §3292) points out that this particle occurs three times in this group of stanzas, in Gautr 1/3, 2/2 and 3/5. Skj B deletes the particle in Gautr 1/3 and 3/5. — [4-6]: These lines appear quasi-proverbial; cf. Hávm 117/5-10 and 123/1-3.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
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. Lind, Eric Henrik. 1920-1. Norsk-isländska personbinamn från medeltiden: samlade ock utgivna med forkläringar. Uppsala: Lundequist.
10. LT = La Farge, Beatrice and John Tucker. 1992. Glossary to the Poetic Edda, based on Hans Kuhn’s Kurzes Wörterbuch. Skandinavistische Arbeiten 15. Heidelberg: Winter.
11. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
12. 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.
13. Gautr 1900 = Ranisch, Wilhelm, ed. 1900. Die Gautrekssaga in zwei Fassungen. Palaestra 11. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
14. Gautr 1664 = Verelius, Olaus, ed. 1664. Gothrici & Rolfi Westrogothiæ Regum Historia. Lingua antiqua Gothica conscripta. Uppsala: Curio.
15. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
16. Internal references
17. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gautreks saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 241. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=9> (accessed 2 May 2024)
18. Not published: do not cite ()
19. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Sigvatr Þórðarson, Lausavísur 26’ 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. 732.
20. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 1 (Gauti konungr, Lausavísa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 245.