ǪrvOdd Ævdr 67^VIII (Ǫrv 137)

Var mér skjaldmeyju         skipat it næsta,
þá er orrostu         eiga skyldum.
Veit ek, at ýtar         í Antekju
andrán biðu,         en vér auð fjár.

Var mér skipat it næsta skjaldmeyju, þá er skyldum eiga orrostu. Ek veit, at ýtar biðu {andrán} í Antekju, en vér auð fjár.

I was placed next to a shield maiden when we had to engage in battle. I know that men suffered {life-robbery} [DEATH] in Antioch, but we [got] great wealth.

Mss: 343a(81v), 471(96r), 173ˣ(64vb-65ra) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [1] skjaldmeyju: so 471, ‘skall meyiu’ 343a, skjaldmær 173ˣ    [2] skipat: skiput 173ˣ    [3] er: om. 471    [5] at: om. 173ˣ    [6] Antekju: Aþekju 173ˣ    [7] biðu: bíða 471    [8] en vér: ok 471

Editions: Skj AII, 318, Skj BII, 338, Skald II, 181; Ǫrv 1888, 207, FSGJ 2, 360-1.

Notes: [1-4]: These lines concern a brief and rather brutal episode in the saga, when King Herrauðr provides an armed shield maiden to accompany Oddr on his journey to Bjálkaland (Ǫrv 1888, 172-5). Oddr is reluctant to take her with him and subjects her to a test of strength which she fails. He flings her into a bog and departs on his own. For an interpretation of this episode, see Clunies Ross (2010a, 117-22). — [1] skjaldmeyju ‘a shield maiden’: In the exotic eastern context of Oddr’s later adventures, this warrior woman was probably thought of as an Amazon; the same term is used in Alex to refer to Amazons (cf. ONP: skjaldmær). — [5-8]: These lines are tenuously linked to a passage in the prose text which connects Oddr’s struggles against the rulers of the legendary Bjálkaland with the city of Antioch. This passage, which is not in the oldest ms., 7, claims that after Oddr had killed Álfr bjálki and his wife, he set his chieftains to rule the land and exact tribute from it. Then the following statement is made (Ǫrv 1888, 184-5): En svá segir í ljóðunum frá, at þetta hafi í Antiochiaborg [variant Antekjaborg] verit, er hann drap þessa jarla ‘But it is said in poems that it was in Antioch that he killed these jarls’. As the only other place where the association with Antioch is made is this stanza, there may be some influence from poem to prose here. — [6] í Antekju ‘in Antioch’: A major city of the ancient Near East, situated in modern Turkey, Antioch was an important site of early Christianity. The spelling of the name in Old Norse sources is unstable. Both 343a and 471 record the form Antekja, but ms. 173ˣ has Aþekja. Skj B, Skald and FSGJ adopt Anþekja, which is not in any ms. of this stanza. The prose text of 344a, which does not have the stanza, records Antiochia[borg]. Another spelling is Anteócía, as in Anon Mey 34/1^VII. — [7] andrán ‘life-robbery [DEATH]’: The same kenning occurs in Ǫrv 114/6; see Note there. — [8]: This line is hypometrical as it stands, but could be regularized if the older form féar with hiatus were used instead of the mss’ fjár. This would, however, imply that the underlying form of this stanza is not later than the first half of the C13th.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
5. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
6. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
7. Clunies Ross, Margaret. 2010a. The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Internal references
9. Kirsten Wolf (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilagra meyja drápa 34’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 912-13.
10. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 114 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 44)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 922.