R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2012, ‘Anonymous Poems, Eiríksmál 8’ 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. 1012.
‘Heill þú nú, Eirekr *; vel skalt þú hér kominn,
ok gakk í hǫll horskr.
Hins vil ek þik fregna: hvat fylgir þér
jǫfra frá eggþrimu?’
‘Heill þú nú, Eirekr *; þú skalt hér vel kominn, ok gakk horskr í hǫll. Hins vil ek fregna þik: hvat jǫfra fylgir þér frá {eggþrimu}?’
‘Good fortune to you now, Eiríkr; you will be welcome here, and go, wise, into the hall. One thing I want to ask you: what princes accompany you from {the edge-thunder} [BATTLE]?’
Mss: 761bˣ(106r), FskAˣ(38), 52ˣ(15r-v), 301ˣ(13r) (Fsk)
Readings: [1] Eirekr *: Eiríkr kvað Sigmundr all
Editions: Skj AI, 175, Skj BI, 165, Skald I, 89; Fsk 1902-3, 30 (ch. 7), ÍF 29, 79 (ch. 8); Möbius 1860, 232, Gordon 1957, 149, Jón Helgason 1968, 23.
Context: As for st. 1 (Fsk).
Notes: [1-3]: Noreen (1922b, 540-1) compares this and Eyv Hák 13/5-6 with Vafþr 6/1-3 Heill þú nú Vafðrúðnir! | nú em ec í hǫll kominn, | á þic siálfan siá ‘Good health to you now, Vafþrúðnir; now I have come into the hall to look on you in person’ (NK 46). — [1] heill þú nú, Eirekr * ‘good fortune to you now, Eiríkr’: The speaker is Sigmundr. The phrase identifying him as such in the mss, however, is extrametrical and is omitted here; see Introduction to the poem. Heill is the adj. here, whose sense is most often ‘healthy, hale’, but in the context of this greeting the meaning may rather be ‘fortunate’ (Fritzner: heill adj. 3; cf. heill n. ‘good fortune’). — [4-6]: That Sigmundr immediately asks what in the way of kings Eiríkr brings with him suggests some anxiety on his part. The point would seem to be to show how much Eiríkr’s support is relied upon in Valhǫll (cf. st. 7/5-7 and Note). If this is indeed the poet’s purpose, then in the next stanza it is the number of accompanying kings that matters, not their names, and so the fact that they are not identified need not imply loss of stanzas.
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