StarkSt Vík 30^VIII (Gautr 38)

Nú sótta ek         til Svíþjóðar,
Ynglinga sjöt,         til Uppsala.
Hér láta mik,         sem ek lengi mun,
þöglan þul,         þjóðans synir.

Nú sótta ek sjöt Ynglinga, til Svíþjóðar, til Uppsala. Synir þjóðans láta mik hér þöglan þul, sem ek mun lengi.

I now sought the residence of the Ynglingar, [made my way] to Sweden, to Uppsala. The prince’s sons allow me [to stay] here [as] a silent poet, as I shall [be] for a long time.

Mss: 590b-cˣ(6v) (Gautr); 152(200ra)

Readings: [3] sjöt: ‘sio᷎’ 152    [6] ek: om. 152

Editions: Skj AII, 328, Skj BII, 348, Skald II, 187, FF §27, NN §5; FSN 3, 36, Gautr 1900, 32, FSGJ 4, 33; Edd. Min. 43.

Context: As for Gautr 34.

Notes: [2] til Svíþjóðar ‘to Sweden’: In Old Norse the name designated the region around Lake Mälaren in the east, not the whole of modern Sweden. — [3] sjöt Ynglinga ‘the residence of the Ynglingar’: The Ynglingar were the ancient ruling house of the Svíar, based in Old Uppsala, and celebrated in Þjóð Yt^I, which gives the names of twenty Swedish Ynglingar at Uppsala and six rulers over Norway. Legendary and historical sources claim that the Norwegian royal house that was dominant in the historical period descended from the Swedish dynasty. The pl. form Ynglingar appears only here in Old Norse poetry, although the sg. ynglingr ‘ruler, prince’ is more common; for a discussion, see Introduction to Þjóð Yt^I. — [5] láta ‘allow’: Skj B and Skald emend this, the reading of both mss, to létu ‘they allowed’, although the pres. tense makes good sense. — [6] mun ‘shall [be]’: The reading of both mss; some eds prefer the variant form man (common in Old Norwegian, cf. ANG §524. 2) with the same sense (so Gautr 1900, Edd. Min. and FSGJ, following FSN). — [7] þöglan þul ‘a silent poet’: This line is in kviðuháttr. The adj. þǫgull ‘silent, discreet’ expresses a quality regarded as praiseworthy in early Nordic society, and is associated with the qualities of wisdom and discretion; cf. Hávm 6/4, 15/1. Here, however, the phrase þögull þulr implies a negation of a poet’s normal function of praising his patron at court. The sense to be attributed to þulr here is debatable (see Halvorsen 1976a, and, most recently, Poole 2010a). Where it occurs in the Poetic Edda corpus it usually means ‘wise man, sage’ (cf. LT: þulr), and frequently refers to supernatural beings who have lived a long time, as Starkaðr also has (e.g. Hávm 5-6 (NK 39): at három þul | hlæðu aldregi ‘never laugh at a hoary sage’). The noun’s other possible meaning, ‘poet’, is (probably) supported by Hávm 111/1-2 (NK 34): Mál er at þylia | þular stóli á ‘It is time to recite on the poet’s [or sage’s] seat’ (at the beginning of the Loddfáfnir section of Hávm) and by two examples in the skaldic corpus, Rv Lv 29/1^II, where Rǫgnvaldr uses the word of himself, and HaukrV Ísldr 18/5^IV, where it is used of Þorleifr jarlsskáld. ON þulr and its cognate, OE þyle (cf. Beowulf ll. 1165, 1456, where it is used of Unferð, spokesman for the Danish king Hroðgar and formal challenger of Beowulf, and in vernacular glosses where it is given as equivalent to Lat. orator ‘orator’ or scurra ‘buffoon, jester’), both seem to have covered the roles of ‘spokesman, sage’ and ‘poet’ at the courts of kings, and then perhaps in Old Norse to have later lost the sense of ‘spokesman, sage’, to judge by the two skaldic examples, which are of C12th date (or possibly later, in the case of Ísldr). Thus the external evidence could support either meaning in Gautr 38/7. The poem itself in its present form is probably no earlier than the two skaldic examples, but its creator could have been drawing on older material or he could have been consciously archaising. In support of the sense ‘poet’, Starkaðr refers to himself in the following stanza (Gautr 39/8) as greppr jöfurs ‘the prince’s poet’, and this role is supported by external evidence, particularly from Saxo, where it is claimed (Saxo 2015, I, vi. 5. 6, pp. 382-3) that Óðinn made Starkaðr famous both for his strength of spirit and also for his poetry: non solum animi fortitudine, sed etiam condendorum carminum peritia ‘not only for the strength of his spirit, but also for his knowledge of the songs needing to be composed’ (ed.’s translation), the implication being that Óðinn endowed Starkaðr with the power of certain kinds of poetry, probably magical, in order to bring about Víkarr’s death. Poole (2010a, 253-6) offers a review of the Old Norse representation of Starkaðr as a þulr.

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. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
7. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. 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.
9. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
10. 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.
11. FF = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1922. Fornjermansk forskning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 18:1. Lund: Gleerup.
12. Poole, Russell. 2010a. ‘Þulir as Tradition-Bearers and Prototype Saga-Tellers: Þat er opt gott, er gamlir kveða’. In Quinn et al. 2010, 237-59.
13. Gautr 1900 = Ranisch, Wilhelm, ed. 1900. Die Gautrekssaga in zwei Fassungen. Palaestra 11. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
14. Halvorsen, Eyvind Fjeld. 1976a. ‘Þulr’. KLNM 20, 402-3.
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. Not published: do not cite (HaukrV Ísldr^IV)
18. Edith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2012, ‘ Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal’ 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. 3. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1440> (accessed 24 April 2024)
19. Not published: do not cite ()
20. Not published: do not cite (HaukrV Ísldr 18^IV)
21. Judith Jesch (ed.) 2009, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl Kali Kolsson, Lausavísur 29’ 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. 605-6.
22. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 34 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 26)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 277.
23. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 38 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 30)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 281.
24. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 39 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 31)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 283.
25. Not published: do not cite ()