ǪrvOdd Ævdr 42^VIII (Ǫrv 112)

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 112 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 42)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 920.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

In the continuous Ævdr according to the younger mss the sequence of events referred to in this stanza is hard to understand. It is necessary to realise that in the saga text Ævdr 38 (Ǫrv 108) is placed immediately before the prose passage that explains why his shipmates accuse Oddr of cowardice. They had been waiting for him at their ships while he had been off in the woods, where Ásmundr had been killed. Ævdr 38 is Oddr’s response to Hjálmarr’s question as to whether he has avenged Ásmundr’s death. Oddr indicates in the stanza that he is overwhelmed by his foster-brother’s death but that he wants to sail away from Ireland immediately, not telling them about his pact with Ǫlvǫr. Because he failed to take vengeance, his shipmates call him a coward, but then seem to be mollified by his acts of further aggression (Ǫrv 1888, 76-9). — [5-8]: This helmingr does not correspond very well to the prose text, which at this point has Oddr and his men travel from the west to the island of Læsø (ON Hlésey) in the Kattegat, as is also mentioned in Ǫrv 45/1-4 (see Notes to [All] and l. 4 there). According to the prose, Oddr’s opponents on Læsø include a jarl called Hergautr (his name is given only in 7), who had thirty ships. After this, according to 7, Oddr’s party sails to Sjælland, where they encounter two brothers, Hólmgeirr and Harðvígr, who are jarls of this region and have a grudge against Oddr, who had previously killed other brothers of theirs, who were berserks (so Ǫrv 1888, 79). Presumably these are the ‘evil-hardened brothers’ of ll. 7-8.