Keth Lv 2^VIII (Ket 3 [a])

These ten stanzas contain a hostile exchange (senna) between Ketill and the king of the Saami, Gusi, Brúni’s brother, whom Ketill meets after he departs from Brúni’s home in the spring (ch. 3, FSGJ 2, 160-4). At parting Brúni warns Ketill against travelling through the forest, where, it is implied, he may meet the hostile Gusi; Brúni instructs Ketill to follow a route he points out. Ketill, however, prefers to take a shorter route through the forest, where he is overtaken by Gusi, who is travelling with a wagon drawn by two reindeer.

Previous editions have differed in their allocation of stanzas to the two speakers, Ketill and Gusi. Both Skj and Skald have changed the sequence of Keth Lv 3 (Ket 5) and Gusi Lv 3 (Ket 6), as they are present in the mss, to conform to their idea of who speaks which stanza and in what order. Edd. Min. allocates the stanzas, as has been done here, in accordance with the sequence and designation of speakers in the mss. While the first stanza divides cleanly between Ketill (Keth Lv 2, Ket 3a) and Gusi (Gusi Lv 1, Ket 3b), the following stanza (Gusi Lv 2) runs on directly from Gusi’s self-identification, without the prose text indicating any break of speaker. Both Skj and Skald change the order of the following stanzas, placing Gusi Lv 3 (Ket 6), Hverr er á öndrum, before Keth Lv 3 (Ket 5), Hængr ek heiti. Then, following a suggestion of Edd. Min. lxxii that Gusi Lv 2 (Ket 4) and Keth Lv 3 (Ket 5) are parallel and perhaps alternative stanzas to Gusi Lv 3 (Ket 6) and Keth Lv 4 (Ket 7), they treat Keth Lv 4 (Ket 7), Hæng kalla mik, immediately after Hængr ek heiti (Ket 5) as a kind of duplicate stanza (they are both present in 343a, but Ket 6-7 are not in 471). In CPB (CPB II, 557) Gusi Lv 2 (Ket 4) is transposed to after Keth Lv 8 (Ket 13), and both stanzas are regarded as addressed by a troll to Ketill. There is no basis in the ms. tradition for this interpretation or for the transposition.

The majority of these stanzas are in fornyrðislag (or málaháttr), but Gusi Lv 2 (Ket 4) is in ljóðaháttr and fornyrðislag.

Skríð þú af kjálka;         kyrr þu hreina;
seggr síðförull,         seg, hvattu heitir.

Skríð þú af kjálka; kyrr þu hreina; seggr síðförull, seg, hvattu heitir.

Slide from the sledge; calm the reindeer; man travelling late, say what your name is.

Mss: 343a(55v), 471(52r) (Ket)

Readings: [4] seg: seg þú 471

Editions: Skj AII, 279, Skj BII, 301, Skald II, 159, FF §16; FSN 2, 119, FSGJ 2, 160, Anderson 1990, 48, 91, 433; Edd. Min. 77.

Context: The first four lines of this stanza (Ket 3a) are introduced by the words: Ketill kvaddi hann með vísu ‘Ketill addressed him with a stanza’. Between lines 1-4 and 5-8 the mss indicate that Gusi is the speaker of the latter part of the stanza (Ket 3b) by the remark: sá svarar ‘that [man] answers’ (343a) or sá sagði ‘that [man] said’ (471).

Notes: [All]: The request that a stranger reveal his name and identity is conventional in both mythic and heroic poetry; cf. Fáfn 1-2. — [1, 2] kjálka; hreina ‘the sledge; the reindeer (pl.)’: These words immediately indicate the northern setting of the senna. — [3] síðförull ‘travelling late’: The first part of this cpd is usually translated as ‘late’ (LP: síðfǫrull; Edd. Min. 146). Kock however argues that it means ‘far’ (FF §16) and adduces expressions such as OE sīde ond wīde ‘far and wide’. One could add that the Old Norse adj. síðr means ‘long’, although it refers to vertical rather than horizontal extension (LP: 1. síðr). In the context of the saga a word meaning ‘out late’ seems to contradict Gusi’s question to Ketill in Gusi Lv 3/1-2 (Ket 6): ‘Who is that on skis in the first part of the day (öndverðan dag) … ?’ However, a conventional scenario in which a traveller meets and is challenged by a supernaturally powerful being while driving through a forest in the evening has a close parallel in Bragi Troll 1^III and Anon (SnE) 9^III (cf. SnE 1998, I, 83-4).

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. 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.
5. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. 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.
9. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
10. FF = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1922. Fornjermansk forskning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 18:1. Lund: Gleerup.
11. Internal references
12. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from Snorra Edda 9’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 519.
13. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, An exchange of verses between Bragi and a troll-woman 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 64.
14. Not published: do not cite ()
15. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 13 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 563.
16. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 3 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 553.
17. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 4 (Gusi finnakonungr, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 555.
18. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 6 (Gusi finnakonungr, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 557.
19. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 5 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 556.
20. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 7 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 4)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 558.
21. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 3 (Gusi finnakonungr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 554.