Hjálm Lv 6^VIII (Ǫrv 16)

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 16 (Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri, Lausavísur 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 829.

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

In both Heiðr mss, this stanza follows Ǫrv 15 without intervening prose, while in the Ǫrv mss it comes towards the end of Hjálmarr’s death-song. In most of them, it is the penultimate stanza of the death-song, followed by Hjálm Lv 10 (Ǫrv 20), but this stanza is missing in 344a, so this is the final stanza of the death-song in this ms., after which Hjálmarr is said to die.

The Ǫrv mss have a completely different first helmingr of this stanza from that of the Heiðr mss. The variant text of the first helmingr is printed below. The second helmingr exhibits no significant differences. Skj B prints the Ǫrv text of the first helmingr, while Skj A gives the text according to 2845, with the Ǫrv text in the notes. Skald prints the Ǫrv text of the first helmingr and gives the Heiðr version as a separate b. stanza. Edd. Min. gives both versions separately. Ms. R715ˣ offers basic support for the text of 2845, even though at a later stage someone crossed through the original text in R715ˣ and replaced it with the text according to the Ǫrv mss (see Heiðr 1924, 100 n. 4). As Finnur Jónsson did not use R715ˣ, its basic support for the text of 2845 was not apparent in his edn.

Drekkr með jöfri         jarla mengi,
öl glaðliga         at Uppsölum.

Mengi jarla drekkr öl glaðliga með jöfri at Uppsölum.

A crowd of warriors drinks ale merrily with the prince at Uppsala.

— Skj’s and Skald’s apparent preference for the first helmingr of this stanza according to the Ǫrv mss presumably derives from their belief (doubtless following the arguments of Edd. Min. xxxix-xlii) that the contents of the helmingr were more compatible with what both Heiðr and Ǫrv tell us about Hjálmarr, who is elsewhere represented as serving the Swedish king and being a suitor for the hand of his daughter, Ingibjörg. But, as Christopher Tolkien has pointed out (Heiðr 1960, 75), the information in the Heiðr version of this stanza might represent an older version of the story of Hjálmarr, in which he had no connection with the Swedish king, and allude to the behaviour of retainers at his father’s court. Edd. Min. (xl) on the other hand argued that this information was a later intrusion into the story. Here the Heiðr text is treated as potentially old and the two are treated as genuine variants. — [8]: As it stands, this line is hypometrical, but the older, disyllabic form of the verb, þjáa ‘enslave’, would make it metrical.