Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Gríms saga loðinkinna 6 (Grímr loðinkinni, Lausavísur 4)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 296.
Grímr speaks these two stanzas after he and his supporters have killed the berserk Sørkvir and his eleven berserk companions in an encounter to which Sørkvir challenged Grímr after Grímr’s twelve-year-old daughter Brynhildr has refused to marry him (FSGJ 2, 194-5). Þrǫstr (GrL 6/8) is the name of the man who bears Sørkvir’s shield and holds it in front of him when Grímr strikes the first blow (FSGJ 2, 195-6). The episode is parallel to two similar episodes in Ket (see FSGJ 2, 167-8, 173-81) where Grímr’s father Ketill hœngr does battle against two different unwanted suitors for the hand of his own daughter Hrafnhildr; in GrL 7 below Grímr expressly says that he is following the example of his father. The motif of the twelve berserks as opponents of the hero also appears in Heiðr and in Ǫrv, and there are verbal similarities between GrL 6 and three stanzas transmitted in these two sagas (Ǫrv 10) and the two stanzas named in the note on GrL 6/3-4. Heusler and Ranisch see this as evidence that GrL is borrowing from an older version of Ǫrv, which in turn was used in Heiðr: one of the twelve berserks in Heiðr is the unsuccessful suitor for the hand of a king’s daughter; he challenges the successful suitor Hjálmarr to combat (Heiðr 1924, 4-12; cf. Edd. Min. xxxvii-ix, lviii-ix, lxxxiii-iv). Ǫrvar-Oddr is said to be the son of Grímr (cf. Ket ch. 5, GrL ch. 4, Ǫrv ch. 1, FSGJ 2, 181, 198, 202).
Hér höfum fellt til foldar
tírarlausa tólf berserki.
Þó var Sørkvir þróttrammastr
þeira seggja en Þröstr annarr.
Hér höfum fellt tólf tírarlausa berserki til foldar. Þó var Sørkvir þróttrammastr þeira seggja, en Þröstr annarr.
‘Here we have felled twelve inglorious berserks to the ground. Yet Sørkvir was the most powerful in strength of those men, and Þrǫstr was the second.’
In 471 this part of the saga is written in a C17th hand on pages inserted into the ms. (cf. Anderson 1990, 71-2, 117 n. 300).
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
Hér höfum vér fellt
til foldar
†[…]†lausa
tólf berserki.
Þó var Sørkvir
þroska mestr
þeira seggja
en †þrausti† annarr.
Her hofum fellt | til folldar | dyralꜹsa | xij berserki | þo var Sorkvir | seɢia þeiʀa | þrottrammaztr | enn þroztr annarr |
(VEÞ)
hier hȯffum fellt | til folldar , týralausa xij Berserke , þo var Sórkuer so | knrammastur þeira seggia enn þraustur annar
(VEÞ)
Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 9. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Gríms saga loðinkinna II 1: AII, 288-9, BII, 309-10, Skald II, 164; FSN 2, 154-5, FSGJ 2, 196, Anderson 1990, 66, 121, 448; Edd. Min. 96.
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