Angantýr Lv 1VIII (Heiðr 29)
Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 29 (Angantýr Arngrímsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 390.
Hervör ‘Hervǫr’
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Hervǫr (noun f.)
kallar ‘do you call’
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kalla (verb): call
svá ‘thus’
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svá (adv.): so, thus
Full ‘Full’
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2. fullr (adj.; °compar. -ari, superl. -astr): full, complete
feikn ‘’
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2. feikn (adj.): terrible < feiknstafr (noun m.)
notes
[4] feiknstafa ‘of curses’: Lit. ‘of portentous or terrible staves’, probably runes (cf. Anon Sól 60/6VII, Grí 12/6 and LT 57), taken here with the sense ‘something which causes evil’, and according with Hervǫr’s curse of the previous stanza. Cf. OE fācenstæf (pl. fācenstafas, Beowulf l. 1017) ‘works of evil, acts of malice, treachery’ (DOE). Some eds construe this line with the previous two, rather than with l. 4, as here, but in this stanza and elsewhere in the poem Angantýr seems to be more concerned with the broader fact that Hervǫr is there at all rather than the specific content of her speech.
stafa ‘of curses’
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stafr (noun m.; °-s, dat. -; -ir): staff, post, stave, stick < feiknstafr (noun m.)
notes
[4] feiknstafa ‘of curses’: Lit. ‘of portentous or terrible staves’, probably runes (cf. Anon Sól 60/6VII, Grí 12/6 and LT 57), taken here with the sense ‘something which causes evil’, and according with Hervǫr’s curse of the previous stanza. Cf. OE fācenstæf (pl. fācenstafas, Beowulf l. 1017) ‘works of evil, acts of malice, treachery’ (DOE). Some eds construe this line with the previous two, rather than with l. 4, as here, but in this stanza and elsewhere in the poem Angantýr seems to be more concerned with the broader fact that Hervǫr is there at all rather than the specific content of her speech.
ferr ‘carry’
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fara (verb; ferr, fór, fóru, farinn): go, travel
þú ‘you’
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þú (pron.; °gen. þín, dat. þér, acc. þik): you
at ‘on’
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3. at (prep.): at, to
illu ‘detriment’
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illr (adj.): bad, evil, unwell
ertu ‘You have’
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2. vera (verb): be, is, was, were, are, am
orðin ‘become’
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1. verða (verb): become, be
ok ‘and’
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3. ok (conj.): and, but; also
örvita ‘unhinged’
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ørvita (adj.)
villhyggjandi ‘reasoning astray’
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villhyggjandi (adj.)
notes
[7] villhyggjandi ‘reasoning astray’: A hap. leg. Most other eds also treat as a cpd.
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A prose interjection in R715ˣ reads (Heiðr 1924, 108): I þui bili opnudust haugarnir, og var allt at sia sem logi eirn, ok þa var þetta kuedid i haugi Anganntyrs ‘At that moment the mounds opened, and everything was like a single flame to look at, and then this was said in Angantýr’s mound’.
The draugr or animate, corporeal ghost of a deceased person, in particular the inhabitant of a burial mound (LP; Fritzner; CVC; cf. haugbúi ‘mound-dweller’) is a common figure in Old Norse literature. The revenant may remain inside the mysteriously-opened mound (see Heiðr 22/6), as Angantýr does here, or break out to interact with (often haunt) the living (see Chadwick 1946 for comprehensive examples and discussion). The recitation of verse is a characteristic commonly associated with draugar (ibid., 61-5 and 106-18); for a situation similar to the present one, see Nj ch. 78, in which the mound of Gunnarr Hámundarson opens and he is heard to recite poetry (GunnHám Lv 14V (Nj 29)), although in that instance there is no-one involved in dialogue with him. SnSt Ht 30III exemplifies a metre called there draughent, though it is not clear whether this means ‘ghost-rhymed’ or ‘trunk-rhymed’ (see Note to [All] there). — A prose context similar to that given at this point in R715ˣ occurs slightly later in the exchange in the other mss, before Angantýr Lv 3 (Heiðr 32). That stanza does not appear in R715ˣ, however.
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