Framarr Lv 2^VIII (Ket 35)

Veifir þú vængjum;         vápnum mun ek þér heita;
vafrar þú nú, víðflögull,         sem vitir mik feigan.
Villr ertu, vígstari;         vit munum sigr hafa;
hverf þú at Hængi;         hann skal nú deyja.

Þú veifir vængjum; ek mun heita þér vápnum; þú vafrar nú, víðflögull, sem vitir mik feigan. Ertu villr, {vígstari}; vit munum hafa sigr; hverf þú at Hængi; hann skal nú deyja.

You flap your wings; I will promise you weapons; you hover about now, wide-flying one <eagle>, as if you knew me [to be] doomed. You are confused, {slaughter-starling} [RAVEN/EAGLE]; we two will have the victory; turn to Hœngr (‘Salmon’), he must now die.

Mss: 343a(57v), 471(56r) (Ket); also used selectively: papp32ˣ(10r) (Ket)

Readings: [1] Veifir: ‘Veifuar’ 471    [3] nú: om. 471;    ‑flögull: ‑flugull 471    [5] ertu: ‘Ertt þu’ 471;    víg‑: so papp32ˣ, víf‑ 343a, 471

Editions: Skj AII, 286, Skj BII, 307, Skald II, 162-3, NN §2396; FSN 2, 137, FSGJ 2, 178, Anderson 1990, 58, 106, 301, 442; Edd. Min. 84.

Context: The eagle attacks Framarr so ferociously that the latter must fend him off with weapons. In the saga this stanza, addressed to the eagle, is introduced by the words: Þá kvað hann vísu ‘Then he spoke a stanza’.

Notes: [All]: The stanza presents a fine example of hubris. Framarr cannot believe that he is doomed and that the eagle is intending to attack him. In ll. 5-8 he tells the eagle that it is confused and that its hostility should be directed at Ketill, because he is the one who is going to die. The emphatic pronouns vit ‘we two’ (l. 6) and hann ‘he’ (l. 8) draw attention to Framarr’s false perception that he and the eagle are in alliance and are the main alliterating staves in ll. 5-6 and 7-8 respectively. — [1-6]: All these lines have alliteration on <v>. — [2] ek mun heita þér vápnum ‘I will promise you weapons’: Kock (NN §2396) interprets the verb heita here, as in a similar context in GrL 5/2, not as the strong verb ‘name, promise’ but rather as the weak verb ‘heat, brew’. He maintains that heita ‘brew’ is used in this stanza absolutely (i.e. without a direct object) and metaphorically of the ‘drink’ Ketill is ‘brewing’ (or for the ‘feast’ he is ‘preparing’) for the eagle with his weapons, and adduces Ket 36/1-2 to support this interpretation: Dregz þú nú, Dragvendill, | við krás arnar ‘You are drawn now, Dragvendill, for the delicacies of the eagle [CORPSES]’; cf. such phrases as ætt ara | oddom saddak ‘to satiate the family of the eagles with weapon-points’ in HHund II 8/7-8 (NK 152). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) emends the line to vápnum munk þik beita ‘I will attack you with weapons’, i.e. he alters not only the verb from heita to beita ‘let bite’, but also the pron. þér (dat.) to the acc. þik. — [3] víðflögull ‘wide-flying one <eagle>’: The cpd víðflögull (or víðflugull) is only attested here (on other adjectives of this kind cf. Falk 1889b, 39-40); several mss have the variant reading víða ‘widely’. — [5] vígstari ‘slaughter-starling [RAVEN/EAGLE]’: It is unclear whether papp32ˣ has this form (‘vÿgstare’ as Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir transcribed it for this edn) or vígfari (‘Wygffare’ as Anderson transcribed it, cf. 1990, 301). Other mss have víg- but not -stari, or -stari but not víg-. Most previous eds, who do not mention papp32ˣ, have the form vígstari, although it does not appear as a cpd in the mss they mention. They doubtless regard it as an emendation (cf. Edd Min. 150: vígstari, marked with an † to indicate that it is not found in any mss., Edd. Min. 134). The cpd vígstari would be a kenning for an eagle or raven of a conventional type (Meissner 117-23). The reading of 343a and 471 vífstari ‘woman-starling’ makes no sense in this context. Konráð Gíslason (Nj 1875-89, II, 510 n.; cf. Edd. Min. 150) suggested emendation to vígskári ‘battle-gull’, but emendation is not necessary here.

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. Nj 1875-89 = Konráð Gíslason and Eiríkur Jónsson. 1875-89. Njála: Udgivet efter gamle håndskrifter. Íslendingasögur udgivne efter gamle haandskrifter af Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-selskab 4. Copenhagen: Thiele.
5. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
7. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
8. 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.
9. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
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. Falk, Hjalmar. 1889b. ‘Die Nomina agentis der altnordischen Sprache’. BGDSL 14, 1-52.
13. Internal references
14. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Gríms saga loðinkinna 5 (Grímr loðinkinni, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 294.
15. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 36 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 20)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 590.