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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Anon (Heiðr) 5VIII (Heiðr 86)

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.

Anonymous LausavísurLausavísur from Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
456

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.

Mss: 2845(73r), R715ˣ(30v), 203ˣ(109r) (Heiðr)

Readings: [1] Þess: þá R715ˣ, þessa 203ˣ;    galt: so R715ˣ, 203ˣ, allt 2845;    gedda: ‘giedda’ R715ˣ    [2] Grafár: ‘grafarr’ 2845, ‘Gropar’ R715ˣ, ‘Greipar’ 203ˣ    [3] er: at 203ˣ;    Heiðrekr: Heiðrekr konungr R715ˣ;    veginn: ‘veiginn’ R715ˣ    [4] Harvaða‑: with æ written above the first a 2845, ‘hauada’ R715ˣ, ‘ha̋rvada’ 203ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 250, Skj BII, 270, Skald 140; FSN 1, 489, Heiðr 1873, 265, 345, Heiðr 1924, 84, 141, FSGJ 2, 51, Heiðr 1960, 45 (Heiðr).

Context: 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.

Notes: [1] gedda ‘pike’: Esox lucius. — [2] Grafár ‘of the Grafá’: This river has not been identified. — [4] und Harvaðafjöllum ‘under Harvaðafjǫll’: The Carpathian mountains, the largest mountain range in Europe, form an arc of c. 1500 km from the Czech Republic, through Slovakia, Poland, the Ukraine and Romania, to the Iron Gates gorge on the River Danube at the border between Romania and Serbia. The Old Norse word is regularly formed from the root karpat- via Grimm’s Law, but the p. n. is not otherwise attested in its Germanic form (Heiðr 1960, xxiii and n. 2).

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. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
  5. Heiðr 1924 = Jón Helgason, ed. 1924. Heiðreks saga. Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs. SUGNL 48. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
  6. 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.
  7. Heiðr 1873 = Bugge, Sophus, ed. 1873. Hervarar saga ok Heidreks. Det Norske oldskriftselskabs samlinger 17. Christiania (Oslo): Brøgger.
  8. Internal references
  9. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 367. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=23> (accessed 29 March 2024)
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