Hjǫrleifr Lv 1^VIII (Hálf 3)

These two stanzas form an exchange between King Hjǫrleifr and a spirit being who is identified by the king’s men as intent upon polluting the water they are about to draw from a spring. The king speaks Hálf 3 to the spirit and threatens him with a burning spear; in Hálf 4 the spirit retaliates by prophesying the end of the good fortune of Hjǫrleifr’s wife Hildr. Although the second helmingr of this stanza is defective, the prophecy appears to concern Hildr, Hjǫrleifr and a fire, and this links the episode with the main saga narrative and looks forward to the scene at King Hreiðarr’s court, where Hjǫrleifr is bound between two fires and only Hildr’s quick-thinking help saves him from death.

Gakk þú frá brunni         — glettzt lítt* við mik,
þræll herfiligr —         þíns innis til.
Mun ek senda þér         sveiðanda spjót,
þat er gyrja mun         granir þínar.

Gakk þú frá brunni til innis þíns; glettzt lítt* við mik, herfiligr þræll. Ek mun senda þér sveiðanda spjót, þat er mun gyrja granir þínar.

Go [away] from the spring to your abode; provoke me little, wretched scoundrel. I shall send you a burning spear, which will stain your whiskers.

Mss: 2845(33r) (Hálf)

Readings: [1] Gakk: Geck 2845    [2] glettzt lítt*: ‘gletta líttu’ 2845

Editions: Skj AII, 257, Skj BII, 276, Skald II, 144, NN §§2379, 3286; Hálf 1864, 7, Hálf 1909, 79, FSGJ 2, 99, Hálf 1981, 110-11, 172; Edd. Min. 94.

Context: Returning from a viking expedition, King Hjǫrleifr, his wife Hildr in mjóa ‘the Slender’, and their retinue spend the night on their ship off the coast of southern Finnmǫrk (Finnmark). The men light a fire on the shore and two of them go to fetch water from a spring. The stanza is preceded by the words: Þar sáu þeir brunnmiga ok sögðu Hjörleifi kóngi. Síðan heitir kóngr broddspjót í eldi ok skaut til hans. Kóngr kvað … ‘There they saw a brunnmigi (‘spring-pisser’) and told king Hjǫrleifr. Then the king heats a pike in the fire and shot at him. The king said …’. The stanza is followed by the words Þá tóku þeir vatn, en þussinn skauzt inn í bjargit ‘Then they took water, but the giant slipped away into the rock’.

Notes: [All]: The concept of a being that pollutes springs or streams by urinating in them is attested in Scandinavian folklore (cf. CVC: brunn-migi). It is sometimes imagined as a fox spirit, although here the being is called þuss ‘giant’ or ‘troll’. The cpd brunnmigi ‘spring-pisser’ appears only in the prose preceding this stanza and in Þul Grýlu 1/8^III, where most of the other heiti in the stanza are terms for foxes. — [2] glettzt lítt* ‘provoke … little’: I.e. ‘do not provoke’. In NN §2379 Kock prints glettsk lítt and, referring to NN §604, where he argues that both fátt and lítt are common negations, criticises those eds who substitute the negation contained in the ms. reading líttu by enclitic -at (so Skj B). Nevertheless in Skald Kock prints gletzat. — [6] sveiðanda spjót ‘a burning spear’: The final superscript a of sveiðanda is barely discernible in the ms. In NN §3286 Kock suggests that the hap. leg. sveiðanda is a pres. part. derived from a verb sveiða and must mean ‘burning’; Hálf 1909 renders sveiðanda spjót with einen glühenden Speer ‘a glowing spear’; Edd. Min. 148 translates sveiða as sengen (oder angesengt sein?) ‘singe (or be singed?)’; AEW: sveiða as brennen, schmerzen ‘burn, ache’; LP: sveiða as beskrive en bue (?) ‘curve(?)’. — [7] gyrja ‘stain’: This verb is a hap. leg. and is thought to be related to gor ‘half-digested stomach contents, cud of an animal’, deriving from a root  g^u̯her- ‘hot, warm’ (see Pokorny 1959, 493-5); the meaning ‘singe, burn’ seems equally possible.

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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
6. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
9. 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.
10. Pokorny, Julius. 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke.
11. Hálf 1981 = Seelow, Hubert, ed. 1981. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. RSÁM 20. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar.
12. Hálf 1864 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1864. Saga af Hálfi ok Hálfsrekkum. Norrøne Skrifter af sagnhistorisk Indhold 1. Christiania (Oslo): Det Nordiske Oldskriftselskab.
13. Hálf 1909 = Andrews, A. Le Roy, ed. 1909. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. ASB 14. Halle: Niemeyer.
14. Internal references
15. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Grýlu heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 966.
16. Hubert Seelow (ed.) 2017, ‘Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 13 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 316.
17. Hubert Seelow (ed.) 2017, ‘Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 4 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 307.