Hǫrðr Lv 1^VIII (HjǪ 22)

The eighteen stanzas of this section of HjǪ occur in conversations at the court of Hundingi, the sorcerer king, whose kindly daughter, Princess Hervǫr, warns the heroes in advance of her father’s dangerous proclivities. Challenged by the king’s evil, jealous counsellor, Hástigi, they take his favoured place on the bench. They fulfill a forsending ‘dangerous mission’ imposed on them by Hundingi for winter quarters in which they fight with and kill a sacred bull, a devourer of human flesh, whose escape from its enclosure could cause the destruction of the world. Ensuing scenes follow the stereotypical heroic patterns of protagonists at a hostile and unwholesome court, leading to the death of the king and the resultant freeing of his daughter.

Hver ertu,         þrifnust fljóða,
hýrlunduð með kinn         ok fagra lokka?
Ekkert vífa         ek leit hæverskligra
        fyr jörð ofan.

Hver ertu þrifnust fljóða, hýrlunduð með kinn ok fagra lokka? Ek leit ekkert hæverskligra vífa fyr ofan jörð.

Who are you, most prosperous of women, of cheerful disposition with cheek and fair locks? I have seen no woman more courteous upon the earth.

Mss: 109a IIIˣ(272v), papp6ˣ(52v), ÍBR5ˣ(94) (HjǪ)

Readings: [3, 4] með kinn ok fagra lokka: so ÍBR5ˣ, með kinnfagra lokka 109a IIIˣ, með kinn fagra locka with ‘ok ljósgult fr[…]’ written above the line in another hand papp6ˣ    [5] Ekkert: so papp6ˣ, ÍBR5ˣ, ekki 109a IIIˣ    [6] leit: leit fyrri ÍBR5ˣ    [7] fyr jörð ofan: ‘fæþt við foldar þröm’ corrected from fyr jörð ofan above the line in another hand papp6ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 337, Skj BII, 358, Skald II, 193, NN §§2617, 3296C; HjǪ 1720, 45-6, FSN 3, 489, FSGJ 4, 214, HjǪ 1970, 38, 93, 154.

Context: King Hringr, who has been transformed by enchantment into Hǫrðr the swineherd, asks a beautiful lady sitting by a tower to tell them her name.

Notes: [All]: The ms. transmission of this stanza is defective on several grounds, metrical, alliterative and semantic, and most eds have made up for it by (a) resort to the later additions to papp6ˣ and (b) by fairly drastic emendation of their own. Thus most eds have deleted þrifnust fljóða ‘most prosperous of women’ (l. 2), though it occurs in all mss, and inserted papp6ˣ’s additions where the stanza is most aberrant. At issue here is, firstly, the status of the additions to papp6ˣ, discussed in the Introduction above, and the editorial practice of relying on major unwitnessed emendation, towards both of which this edn takes a reasonably conservative attitude. Skj B effectively rewrites the stanza to Finnur Jónsson’s own design, while NN §2617 offers meditations upon alternative changes to the text without coming to any conclusion and NN §3296C presents an improved but radically emended form of the stanza, which is reproduced in Skald. — [2-3]: These lines are unmetrical and do not alliterate, nor is the sense of með kinn ‘with cheek’ (l. 3) very satisfactory. Emendations here from HjǪ 1720 onwards have usually involved the deletion and/or rearrangement of some words of the mss and the incorporation of papp6ˣ’s added line ok ljósgult frón lokka ‘and the shining golden land of locks [HEAD]’ in one form or another. — [7] fyr ofan jörð ‘upon the earth’: The line is unmetrical. It is not clear whether the stanza as a whole should be considered an attempt at ljóðaháttr or a fornyrðislag stanza that is missing its final line. Most previous eds have adopted a version of the line added to papp6ˣ, fædt við foldar þröm ‘born at the edge of the earth’ instead of what all mss have at this point. The origin of papp6ˣ’s addition cannot be confirmed and is suspiciously similar to Hyndl’s claim that the god Heimdallr was borinn … við iarðar þrǫm ‘born … at the edge of the earth’ (Hyndl 35/1, 8 (NK 294); cf. Þjóð Yt 26/10^I). The last three lines of this stanza are very similar to lines at the end of HjǪ 11/5-7 and 12/5-7.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. HjǪ 1720 = Peringskiöld, Johann, ed. 1720. Hialmters och Olvers saga, Handlande om trenne Konungar i Manahem eller Sverige, Inge, Hialmter, och Inge, samt Olver Jarl och om theras uthresor til Grekeland och Arabien. Stockholm: Horn.
9. HjǪ 1970 = Harris, Richard L., ed. 1970. ‘Hjálmþérs saga: A Scientific Edition’. Ph.D. thesis. University of Iowa.
10. Internal references
11. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 488. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=49> (accessed 19 April 2024)
12. Not published: do not cite ()
13. Edith Marold (ed.) 2012, ‘Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal 26’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 55.
14. Richard L. Harris (ed.) 2017, ‘Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis 11 (Hjálmþér Ingason, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 503.