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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Keth Lv 9VIII (Ket 14)

Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 14 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 564.

Ketill hœngrLausavísur
8910

Ketill has taken an oath that he will not marry off Hrafnhildr, his daughter by the wife his father chooses for him (Ket ch. 4), against her will (FSGJ 2, 165-8). Áli, champion of the Uppdalir (Uppdalakappi), challenges Ketill to single combat after Hrafnhildr has rejected him as a suitor. Ketill’s followers, the vikings Hjálmr and Stafnglámr, offer to fight Áli in Ketill’s stead, but he asks them to assist him by protecting him with a shield. This they fail to do, with the result that Áli wounds Ketill in the face. Ketill addresses the two vikings in Ket 14 and alludes to the circumstances and course of the battle in Ket 15 before proceeding to kill Áli. The episode has a longer parallel at the end of the saga (Ket ch. 5; see the Introduction to sts 28-33).

Hjálmr ok Stafnglámr,         hlífið ykkr báðir;
gefið rúm gömlum         at ganga framar hóti.

Hjálmr ok Stafnglámr, hlífið báðir ykkr; gefið gömlum rúm at ganga hóti framar.

Hjálmr and Stafnglámr, both of you protect yourselves; give the old one room to go forward a bit.

Mss: 343a(56v), 471(53v) (Ket)

Editions: Skj AII, 282, Skj BII, 303, Skald II, 160; FSN 2, 126, FSGJ 2, 168, Anderson 1990, 52, 97, 437; Edd. Min. 95.

Context: This stanza is introduced with the words: Þá kvað Ketill vísu ‘then Ketill spoke a stanza’. The following stanza runs on from this one without a break and with no prose introduction.

Notes: [All]: It is possible to consider this stanza and the following one as parts of the same poetic utterance. Anderson (1990, 437-8) treats them as one stanza, but other eds separate the first two long-lines from the others. Both stanzas are composed in a mixture of fornyrðislag and málaháttr. — [1] Hjálmr … Stafnglámr: The names of the two vikings. Hjálmr means ‘Helmet’; Stafnglámr is attested only in Ket and as a cognomen in Ǫrv (see Lind 1905-15, 943; Lind 1920-1, 354). The first part of the cpd Stafnglámr means ‘stem’ (stafn) in the prow (or stern) of a ship; the second part (-glámr) may be etymologically related to words designating various luminous or shining objects (such as the moon, an eye, horse with a white spot) or meaning ‘stare’ (AEW: glámr; ÍO: gláma). The cpd could be understood as a kenning for ‘shield’, viz. ‘the shining object of the prow’; both names then designate defensive weapons, helmet and shield, and point to the protective role these vikings are supposed to be playing by backing Ketill up. LP: Stafnglámr understands the name to designate someone who keeps a sharp look-out in the prow of a ship. Kahle (1910, 197) regards Stafnglamr (with short a in glamr) as the correct form and considers glamr etymologically related to glam n. ‘noise’; he translates the name Stafnglamr as ‘Stem-noise’, a reference to the noise of waves through which a ship moves. — [3] gömlum (m. dat. sg.) ‘the old one’: Ketill refers to himself in this somewhat self-deprecatory way, which highlights by implication the uselessness of his followers.

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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
  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. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
  7. Lind, Eric Henrik. 1920-1. Norsk-isländska personbinamn från medeltiden: samlade ock utgivna med forkläringar. Uppsala: Lundequist.
  8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
  9. Lind, Eric Henrik. 1905-15. Norsk-isländska dopnamn ock fingerade namn från medeltiden. Uppsala: Lundequist and Leipzig: Harrassowitz.
  10. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
  11. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
  12. Kahle, Bernhard. 1910. ‘Die altwestnordischen Beinamen bis etwa zum Jahre 1400. Ergänzungen und Nachträge zu Finnur Jónssons Tilnavne i den islandske oldlitteratur’. ANF 26, 142-202, 227-60.
  13. Internal references
  14. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ǫrvar-Odds saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 804. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=35> (accessed 29 March 2024)
  15. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ketils saga hœngs’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 548. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=71> (accessed 29 March 2024)
  16. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 14 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 564.
  17. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 15 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 10)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 565.
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