Hjálm Lv 15^VIII (Ǫrv 25)

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 25 (Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri, Lausavísur 15)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 839.

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

This stanza is the first of a roll-call of Hjálmarr’s former drinking mates.

Neither this nor the four following stanzas are present in 344a, nor are they edited either in Edd. Min. or in Ǫrv 1892. Ǫrv 1888 gives them within square brackets in a smaller font than the main text to indicate Boer’s view that these stanzas were later additions. Skj and Skald separate them as Addendum β. — [1-2]: These lines echo Sigsk 2/5-6 (NK 207) drucco oc dœmðo | dœgr mart saman ‘[they] drank and chatted together many a day’. — [3-8]: The beginning of the list of names of Hjálmarr’s drinking mates, which continues over the following four stanzas. Many of the names, such as Álfr and Atli, with which the list begins, are attested in other heroic poems or in sagas; some are known to have been borne by individuals mentioned in historical sources, such as Ldn. Some of these names may be, or may have originated as, nicknames, especially those that refer to features of the landscape (e.g. gláma ‘bald, barren tract’ or possibly a variant of glámr ‘twilight, gleam’, cf. ONP: glámr, Þul Tungls 1/4^III and Note there, Þul Jǫtna II 1/8^III and Note there), birds (e.g. starri ‘Starling’, trani ‘Crane’) or other animals or natural phenomena (cf. Janzén 1947b, 44-6; Whaley 1993). Vifill (or Vífill) ‘? Beetle’ was the name of one of the first settler Ingólfr’s slaves in Ldn (ÍF 1, 44-5) and the name of a wise commoner who shelters the sons of King Hálfdan in Hrólf; see Hrólf 3/1 and Note.