Forað Lv 2^VIII (Ket 18)

Mörgum manni         hefik til moldar snúit,
        þeim er á fiski fór.
Hverr er sjá inn köpurmáli,         er kominn er í skerin?

Hefik snúit til moldar mörgum manni, þeim er fór á fiski. Hverr er sjá inn köpurmáli, er kominn er í skerin?

I have turned towards the earth many a man who went fishing. Who is that presumptious-speaking man who has come among the skerries?

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

Readings: [3] á fiski fór: so 471, til fiskjar fóru 343a    [4] Hverr: eða hverr 471    [5] í: so 471, om. 343a

Editions: Skj AII, 282, Skj BII, 304, Skald II, 161; FSN 2, 127-8, FSGJ 2, 169, Anderson 1990, 53, 98, 439; Edd. Min. 80.

Context: In the saga this continuation of Forað’s answer is prefaced with the words: Ok enn kvað hún ‘And she also said’.

Notes: [All]: In 343a, 471 and 340ˣ this stanza consists of a first half-stanza in ljóðaháttr followed by a single long-line; in other mss the full-line of the first half-stanza is expanded into a long-line. The second half-stanza is expanded as well, the result being either one long-line whose two parts are unusually long or two long-lines, the second of which contains no words that alliterate. Edd. Min. 80 n. records the text of these variants. — [2] snúit til moldar ‘turned towards the earth’: I.e. ‘led to death, caused to die’. — [3] fór á fiski ‘went fishing’: The reading of 471 has been preferred over that of 343a, til fiskjar fóru ‘went (3rd pers. pl.) fishing’, both because the sg. (fór) rather than the pl. verb would be expected after the dat. sg. mörgum manni ‘many a man’, and because á fiski fór is metrically preferable, as a full line in ljóðaháttr should not end in a disyllabic word with a long first syllable. — [4] hverr er sjá inn köpurmáli ‘who is that presumptious-speaking man’: The adj. kǫpurmáll is a hap. leg. but the synonym kǫpurmálugr appears in Ǫrv, where it is used of Ǫrvar-Oddr by the giant Hildir (Ǫrv 1888, 121 and variant reading l. 24). The etymology of kǫpur- is obscure (AEW: kǫpurmáll; ÍO: köpurmáll), but its sense is clearly derogatory, and implies arrogance, defiance and recklessness in the speaker. Giants are often represented in Old Norse literature as using comparable expressions to belittle their opponents (cf. Kommentar II, 190-1 to Hárb 13/5). In Gylf the giant Skrýmir warns Þórr that the people at the abode of the giant-like Útgarðaloki will not tolerate þvílíkum kǫgursveinum kǫpuryrði ‘overbearing speech of such babes in arms’ (SnE 2005, 39); cf. the similar episode in Þiðr ch. 303 (Þiðr 1905-11, I, 362).

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. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
6. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
9. 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.
10. Þiðr 1905-11 = Bertelsen, Henrik, ed. 1905-11. Þiðriks saga af Bern. SUGNL 34. Copenhagen: Møller.
11. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
12. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
13. Þiðr = Þiðreks saga af Bern.
14. Internal references
15. 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 6 May 2024)
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=113> (accessed 6 May 2024)
17. Not published: do not cite ()