Herv Lv 12^VIII (Heiðr 31)

Segir þú eigi satt,         — svá láti áss þik
heilan í haugi —         sem þú hafir eigi
Tyrfing með þér.         Trautt er þér at veita
arfa þínum         einar bænir.

Þú segir eigi satt, sem hafir þú eigi Tyrfing með þér; svá láti áss þik heilan í haugi. Trautt er þér at veita arfa þínum einar bænir.

You do not speak truly, [you speak] as though you do not have Tyrfingr with you; so may the god leave you unharmed in the mound. You are reluctant to grant one boon to your heir.

Mss: Hb(74r), 2845(65r-v), R715ˣ(13v) (Heiðr)

Readings: [1] Segir: so 2845, seg Hb, ‘seiger’ R715ˣ;    þú: ‘þu’ R715ˣ;    eigi: so 2845, ein Hb, ‘ey’ R715ˣ;    satt: so 2845, satt mér Hb, satt mér R715ˣ    [2] áss: so R715ˣ, oss Hb, 2845    [3] haugi: haugi sitja 2845    [4] hafir: so R715ˣ, hefir Hb, hafir(?) 2845    [5] með þér: om. 2845    [6] Trautt: trauðr 2845;    er þér: ertu 2845;    at veita: om. 2845    [7] arfa: arf 2845, R715ˣ;    þínum: at veita 2845, Angantýr R715ˣ    [8] einar bænir: eingabarni 2845, R715ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 246, Skj BII, 266, Skald II, 138, NN §3182; Heiðr 1672, 92, FSN 1, 436-7, 520, Heiðr 1873, 216, 317-18, Heiðr 1924, 25, 109, FSGJ 2, 17, Heiðr 1960, 15; Edd. Min. 16.

Notes: [All]: This stanza poses problems of reconstruction in several places. Tolkien (Heiðr 1960, 15 n. 5) suggests there was originally a stop at the end of the first half-stanza; this is likely correct, but the extant ms. evidence now requires l. 5 to be taken with l. 4. See also following Notes. — [1]: Ms. R715ˣ has the reading chosen here (with ei for eigi ‘not’), but this appears to have been crossed out in the hand of Jón Rugman. Ms. 2845 agrees with the first four words; Hb includes mér in l. 1, but this is extrametrical (see also Andrews 1920, 97). Kock (Skald) takes the reading of Hb, Seg einsatt mér ‘Speak clearly to me’, from the adj. einsær ‘only choice’ (Fritzner, LP: einsær). He points out in NN §3182 that einsætt appears elsewhere in poetry with the meaning ‘evident, clear’; see e.g. Gamlkan Has 43/8^VII, Nj 16//2^V, Arngr Gd 15/6^IV. This is an acceptable alternative. The reading of the present edn is chosen since 2845 and R715ˣ are almost in agreement and the sense fits the context more closely: Angantýr has told an untruth in the previous stanza, saying he does not have Tyrfingr. — [4]: Edd. Min. ends the sentence after this line (see Note [All] above): sem þú hafir eigi! ‘If you don’t have [it]!’. — [5-6]: Edd. Min. rearranges these lines to read trauðr ertu at veita | Tyrfing hvassan ‘you are reluctant to grant sharp Tyrfingr’. All mss agree that Tyrfing comes before the rest of the long-line, however, and hvassan is purely conjectural. — [7-8] arfa þínum einar bænir ‘one boon to your heir’: Hb’s reading is completely acceptable as it stands. However, rather than arfa, dat. sg. of arfi ‘heir’, the other mss have arf, acc. sg. of arfr ‘inheritance’ in l. 7, thus making this the direct object, and eingabarni (dat. sg.) ‘only child’ the indirect object in l. 8. Skj and Skald compromise, printing eingabarni | einar bænir, making the clause read ‘you are reluctant to grant one boon to your only child’, but displacing eingabarni from its position in the stanza as the mss have it. Following on from their emended reading of the previous lines, the eds of Edd. Min. opt for arfa þínum, | einga barni ‘to your heir, your only child’. There is no good reason not to accept the reading of the main ms., however. The line einnar bænar occurs as Ásm 5/3. In the pl., as here, einn takes on the meaning ‘only, just, alone’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
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. 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.
6. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
7. Heiðr 1672 = Verelius, Olaus, ed. 1672. Hervarar Saga på Gammel Gotska. Uppsala: Curio.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
9. Heiðr 1924 = Jón Helgason, ed. 1924. Heiðreks saga. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs. SUGNL 48. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
10. Andrews, A. Le Roy. 1920. ‘Studies in the Fornaldarsǫgur Norðrlanda – Continued’. MP 18, 93-100.
11. Heiðr 1960 = Tolkien, Christopher, ed. and trans. 1960. Saga Heiðreks konungs ins vitra / The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise. Nelson Icelandic Texts. London etc.: Nelson.
12. Heiðr 1873 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1873. Hervarar saga ok Heidreks. Det Norske oldskriftselskabs samlinger 17. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger.
13. Internal references
14. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 43’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 111-12.
15. Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 5 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 19.
16. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 16 (Sigmundr Lambason, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1240.