Keth Lv 21VIII (Ket 37)
Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 37 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 21)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 592.
Hvat er þér, Dragvendill? Hví ertu slær vorðinn?
Til hefi ek nú höggvit; tregt er þér nú at bíta.
Hliðar þú at hjörþingi; hefir þér eigi fyrr vorðit
bilt í braki málma, þar er bragnar hjugguz.
Hvat er þér, Dragvendill? Hví ertu vorðinn slær? Ek hefi nú höggvit til; nú er þér tregt at bíta. Þú hliðar at {hjörþingi}; eigi fyrr hefir þér vorðit bilt í {braki málma}, þar er bragnar hjugguz.
What is the matter with you, Dragvendill? Why have you become dull? I have now struck a blow; now you are slow to bite. You give way at {the sword-meeting} [BATTLE]; you have not failed in {the crash of metal} [BATTLE] before, where warriors exchanged blows.
Mss: 343a(57v), 471(56r) (Ket)
Readings: [2] ertu: ‘enttu’ 471; slær: ‘slior’ 471 [3] höggvit: so 471, höggit 343a [4] nú: om. 471 [6] vorðit: orðit 471 [7] braki: barka or corrected to ‘barke’, perhaps from barka 471
Editions: Skj AII, 287, Skj BII, 307, Skald II, 163; FSN 2, 137-8, FSGJ 2, 179, Anderson 1990, 58, 107; Edd. Min. 84.
Context: In the saga this stanza is introduced by the words: Ok enn kvað hann vísu ‘And he [Ketill] spoke a further stanza’.
Notes: [2] vorðinn ‘become’: This form of the p. p. orðinn shows initial [v] in analogy to the inf. verða ‘become’ (ANG §§253 Anm. 1, 490 Anm. 3-4). The usual form with loss of [v] preceding a back vowel ([o], [u]) appears in the readings of 340ˣ and 471 at l. 6. — [3] höggvit ‘struck’: höggvit or höggit (so 343a) is a form of the p. p. of the verb höggva (ANG §503). — [6-7] eigi fyrr hefir þér vorðit bilt ‘you have not failed before’: The construction is impersonal and could be translated lit. as: ‘it has not become failed for you before’. Previous eds reduce the number of syllables in l. 6 by substituting shorter forms of the verb hefir and/or of the negation: hefirat (Edd. Min.; FSGJ), hefra (Skj B; Skald), hefir … ei (CPB II, 559). For the form vorðit, see Note to l. 2 above. — [7] í braki málma ‘in the crash of metal [BATTLE]’: A conventional battle-kenning. Ms. 471’s barki or barka makes no sense in context. Barki would be a clear example of metathesis from braki, but barka also has an ending (-a) that could only make it the gen. pl. of brak (with metathesis to bark). The form barki is nom. sg. of a noun meaning ‘wind-pipe’ (LP: 1. barki) or a type of boat (LP: 2. barki). The form barka would be an oblique case of these two barki homonyms.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
- 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.
- FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
- 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.
- Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
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