Hróksv Hrkv 27^VIII (Hálf 77)

Hér þykki ek nú         í Hakaveldi
hornungr vera         hverrar þjóðar.
Allir eigu         innar at sitja
hálfargir menn         en Hálfsrekkar.

Ek þykki nú vera hornungr hverrar þjóðar hér í Hakaveldi. Allir hálfargir menn eigu at sitja innar en Hálfsrekkar.

I now seem to be an outcast amongst all people here in Haki’s realm. All half-cowardly men are entitled to sit futher inwards than Hálfr’s champions.

Mss: 2845(38v-39r) (Hálf)

Readings: [7] hálfargir menn: ‘halfar girmar’ 2845

Editions: Skj AII, 269, Skj BII, 291, Skald II, 153; Hálf 1864, 39, Hálf 1909, 130-1, FSGJ 2, 132, Hálf 1981, 135, 197; Edd. Min. 48.

Notes: [2] Hakaveldi ‘Haki’s realm’: See Hálf 65/8 and Note there. — [3] hornungr ‘an outcast’: Lit. ‘someone relegated to the corner’, a term often applied to an illegitimate son; cf. Fritzner, ONP: hornungr. — [6] sitja innar ‘sit futher inwards’: The expression relates to the arrangement of seating in a hall, where more favoured men were allowed to sit on benches closer to the central part of the hall floor where the fire was. — [7] hálfargir menn ‘half-cowardly men’: This emendation appears in Skj B and Skald, while Edd. Min., Hálf 1909 and FSGJ emend to hallar gumnar, construing allir gumnar hallar ‘all men in the hall’. Hálf 1864 emended to Haka gumar ‘Haki’s men’. The ms. here reads ‘halfar girmar’ (not ‘halfargirmadr’ as Skj A has it), with the superscript -ar symbol for the final syllable of each word. Probably the scribe’s exemplar had a nasal stroke instead of an -ar abbreviation over the m of menn. The adj. hálfargr ‘half-cowardly’ occurs nowhere else in Old Norse.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
6. 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.
7. Hálf 1981 = Seelow, Hubert, ed. 1981. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. RSÁM 20. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar.
8. Hálf 1864 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1864. Saga af Hálfi ok Hálfsrekkum. Norrøne Skrifter af sagnhistorisk Indhold 1. Christiania (Oslo): Det Nordiske Oldskriftselskab.
9. Hálf 1909 = Andrews, A. Le Roy, ed. 1909. Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. ASB 14. Halle: Niemeyer.
10. Internal references
11. Hubert Seelow (ed.) 2017, ‘Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka 65 (Hrókr inn svarti, Hrókskviða 15)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 355.