Keth Lv 22^VIII (Ket 39)

Eigi þarftu oss at eggja;         eiga mér sjaldan
fyrðar flugtrauðir         frýja stórhöggva.
Bít þú nú, Dragvendill,         eða brotna ella;
horfin* er okkr heill báðum,         ef þú bilar sinn þriðja.

Þarftu eigi at eggja oss; sjaldan eiga flugtrauðir fyrðar frýja mér stórhöggva. Bít þú nú, Dragvendill, eða ella brotna; heill er horfin* okkr báðum, ef þú bilar þriðja sinn.

You do not need to egg us [me] on; seldom do men averse to flight call into question my dealing in heavy blows. Bite now, Dragvendill, or else break apart; luck has turned away from us both, if you fail a third time.

Mss: 343a(57v), 471(56v) (Ket); also used selectively: 1006ˣ(621), 173ˣ(11r), 342ˣ(74r), 109a IIˣ(162r) (Ket)

Readings: [1] at: á 471    [2] mér: nú 471    [7] horfin*: horfinn 343a, 471;    okkr: om. 471    [8] ef þú bilar sinn þriðja: so 1006ˣ, 173ˣ, 342ˣ, 109a IIˣ, þú bilar sinn þriðja 343a, ef bilar hinn þriðja 471

Editions: Skj AII, 287, Skj BII, 308, Skald II, 163; FSN 2, 138,  FSGJ 2, 180, Anderson 1990, 58, 107, 443; Edd. Min. 84.

Context: Ketill responds to Framarr’s mocking words in the previous stanza with ll. 1-4 and then addresses his sword in ll. 5-8. In the saga this stanza is introduced by the words: Ketill kvað ‘Ketill said’.

Notes: [3] flugtrauðir ‘averse to flight’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Kock (Skald) unnecessarily emend the adj. flugtrauðir (nom. pl.) which qualifies fyrðar ‘men’ to the dat. sg. flugtrauðum, so that it stands in apposition to the pron. mér: ‘me ..., the one averse to flight’. However, all mss with the exception of one (340ˣ ‘flugtrauðz’) have an adj. form in the nom. pl. — [7-8] heill er horfin* okkr báðum, ef þú bilar þriðja sinn ‘luck has turned away from us both, if you fail a third time’: In all mss, with the exception of 343a, l. 8 is a dependent clause introduced by ef ‘if’. Such a dependent clause is necessary in the context of the stanza, as immediately after in the next stanza Ketill (Ket 40) asserts that his sword will not fail three times and this assertion is borne out by the fact that the third blow is fatal to Framarr (cf. the Context to Ket 41). Like most previous eds the present one therefore adds this conj. As it stands, bilar ‘fail’ is the only word in l. 8 which alliterates with a word in l. 7 (báðum ‘both’). The first noun (or adj.) of the line should alliterate (i.e. the noun heill ‘luck’, which precedes báðum; cf. von See 1967, 19-20). Some eds therefore alter the word order of l. 7 to Báðum er okkr heill horfin (so Edd. Min.; FSGJ). Skj B and Skald emend bilar ‘fail’ to hrøkkr ‘give way’, 3rd pers. sg. pres. of the strong verb hrøkkva, doubtless because the words horfin and heill in the first half-line suggest alliteration on <h>. In CPB II, 559 the line is retained as it stands in 343a.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
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. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. 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.
8. See, Klaus von. 1967. Germanische Verskunst. Sammlung Metzler 67. Stuttgart: Metzler.
9. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
10. Internal references
11. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 40 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 23)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 595.
12. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 41 (Framarr víkingakonungr, Lausavísur 4)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 595.