Hannah Burrows (ed.) 2017, ‘Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 86 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 453.
At this point in the saga King Heiðrekr has been killed by nine noble-born men he had enslaved, who also steal the sword Tyrfingr. This half-stanza in málaháttr is now presented as a genuine lausavísa in Heiðr, but there has been speculation that it could preserve much older Germanic traditions from central or south-eastern Europe (Heiðr 1960, xxiii). The place name Harvaðafjǫll referred to in l. 4 certainly points in this direction, being the sole attestation of the regular Germanic form for the Carpathian mountains (see further Note below). Ms. 2845 is the main ms.
Þess galt hon gedda fyr Grafár ósi,
er Heiðrekr var veginn und Harvaðafjöllum.
Hon gedda galt þess fyr ósi Grafár, er Heiðrekr var veginn und Harvaðafjöllum.
‘The pike paid for the fact that Heiðrekr was slain in front of the mouth of the Grafá, under Harvaðafjǫll. ’
Heiðrekr’s son, Angantýr, on a quest to find his father’s killers, encounters three fishermen on the river Grafá. Upon catching a fish, one of them uses a sword to cut off its head and recites this stanza, unwittingly revealing to Angantýr that the sword is Tyrfingr and the fisherman is one of Heiðrekr’s killers. After nightfall Angantýr kills all the assailants and takes back Tyrfingr.
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.
Þess allt hon gedda
fyr †grafarr† ósi,
er Heiðrekr var veginn
und fjöllum.
þess | allt hon gedda fyr grafarr osi er heidʀekr uar ueginn undír haruaþa fiol | lum
(HB)
þá galt hon †giedda†
fyr †Gropar† ósi,
er Heiðrekr konungr var †veiginn†
und †hauada†fjöllum.
þa ga | llt hun giedda fyr Gropar osi er Heidreckur kongur | var veiginn vnder hauada fiollum
(HB)
þessa galt hon gedda
fyr †Greipar† ósi,
at Heiðrekr var veginn
und †ha̋rvada†fjöllum.
Skj: Anonyme digte og vers [XIII], E. 5. Vers af Fornaldarsagaer: Af Hervararsaga IV: AII, 250, BII, 270, Skald 140; FSN 1, 489, Heiðr 1873, 265, 345, Heiðr 1924, 84, 141, FSGJ 2, 51, Heiðr 1960, 45 (Heiðr).
Use the buttons at the top of the page to navigate between stanzas in a poem.
The text and translation are given here, with buttons to toggle whether the text is shown in the verse order or prose word order. Clicking on indiviudal words gives dictionary links, variant readings, kennings and notes, where relevant.
This is the text of the edition in a similar format to how the edition appears in the printed volumes.
This view is also used for chapters and other text segments. Not all the headings shown are relevant to such sections.