ǪrvOdd Lv 16^VIII (Ǫrv 49)

Hvar váruð* þá,         veslar snýtur,
er vér heldum aski         í Elfarsund,
teitir ok reifir         at Trönuvágum?
Þar lá Ögmundr         Eyþjófsbani,
trauðastr flugar,         á tveim skipum.

Hvar váruð* þá, veslar snýtur, er vér heldum aski í Elfarsund, teitir ok reifir at Trönuvágum? Þar lá Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani, trauðastr flugar, á tveim skipum.

Where were you then, pathetic snotty wretches, when we sailed our ship into the Götaälv estuary, happy and cheerful, to Trǫnuvágar? There lay Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani (‘Eyþjófr’s killer’), most reluctant to flee, in two ships.

Mss: 7(55r), 344a(21v), 343a(77v), 471(89r), 173ˣ(53v) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [1] Hvar váruð* þá: om. all others, hvar var þit 7    [2] veslar snýtur: om. all others    [3] er: om. all others;    vér: ‘[…]’ 343a, om. 471, 173ˣ;    heldum: ‘[…]ll[…]um’ 343a, heldum á 173ˣ    [4] í Elfarsund: enskra sunda 344a, í Elfarsker 471, í Elfarsundum 173ˣ    [5] teitir ok reifir: teitr ok leifr 173ˣ    [6] at: í 344a, 173ˣ    [7] lá: lá fyrir 344a    [8] ‑bani: ‘b[…]’ 343a    [9] trauðastr: ‘[…]’ 343a    [10] tveim: ‘ii’ 7, 471, tveimr 344a, 343a, 173ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 300-1, Skj BII, 320, Skald II, 170-1; Ǫrv 1888, 164, Ǫrv 1892, 82, FSGJ 2, 317; Edd. Min. 56.

Context: Oddr sits down and Sjólfr and Sigurðr drain their horns. They bring him refills, raging and groaning. He drinks, brings them refills and recites the following two stanzas.

Notes: [All]: This stanza and the next refer to an episode in Ǫrv in which Oddr and Hjálmarr confront their deadliest enemy, the demonic Ǫgmundr Eyþjófr’s killer, for the first time. In the prose text (Ǫrv 1888, 89; Ǫrv 1892, 47) the two heroes, with few men, enter the Elfarsker (the Götaälv skerries) and the inlets called Trǫnuvágar (Crane Inlets), where they see two ships with black awnings. Oddr then provokes a fight with Ǫgmundr. — [All]: This stanza has two extra lines at the beginning, neither of which are in any ms. except 7. Editors have assumed that the stanza was originally of eight lines, beginning at l. 3, omitting its initial er ‘when’, and that it originally belonged with the stanzas of Oddr’s Ævidrápa. They further assume that the scribe of 7 (or his exemplar) adapted it to the mannjafnaðr format by adding two lines at the beginning. This may be so, but there is such lability between the stanzas that occur at various places in the text of Ǫrv (especially in 7, the oldest ms.) before the Ævdr as well as within this poem as it stands in the younger mss that one cannot be too dogmatic about how this stanza came to occupy its present position. Both Skj B and Skald omit ll. 1-2 of this stanza and the first word of l. 3. — [1-2] hvar váruð* þá, veslar snýtur ‘where were you then, pathetic snotty wretches’: Those eds who keep these lines (Ǫrv 1888; Ǫrv 1892) emend ms. var to váruð ‘you (pl.) were ...’, taking the initial <þ> of the ms.’s þit as part of the verb and retaining an alternative form, it, of the second person dual pron. þit. However, line 1 is a Type B-line with alliteration on v-, and it would be highly unusual to have a verbal ending ‑uð plus a personal pron. in the dip. In addition, line 2 is suspect, with resolution on the first lift in a trisyllabic word (vesalar). Here the ms. form has been normalised to the two-syllable variant veslar (for the variants vesal-/vesl- see Heggstad et al. 2008: vesall) and line 1 further emended to Hvar váruð þá ‘Where were you then?’ — [4] Elfarsund ‘the Götaälv estuary’: This, or a variant of the cpd, is the reading of most mss, only 471 having Elfarsker ‘the Götaälv skerries’, which agrees with the prose text (see Note to [All] above). On this basis, presumably, both Skj B and Skald choose 471’s reading. — [6] at Trönuvágum ‘to Trǫnuvágar’: Lit. ‘to Crane Inlets’. An unidentified location. — [7-8] Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani ‘Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani (“Eyþjófr’s killer”)’: On this creature, see Ǫrv 31-3 and Arnold (2010) for the meanings attached to him in the younger versions of Ǫrv. — [10] flugar ‘to flee’: Lit. ‘of flight’.

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. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
5. 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.
6. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
7. Arnold, Martin. 2010. ‘Við þik sættumsk ek aldri. Ǫrvar-Odds saga and the Meanings of Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani’. In Arnold et al. 2010, 85-104.
8. Ǫrv 1892 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1892a. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Altnordische Saga-Bibliothek 2. Halle: Niemayer.
9. Internal references
10. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ǫrvar-Odds saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 804. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=35> (accessed 25 April 2024)
11. Margaret Clunies Ross (forthcoming), ‘ Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=2999> (accessed 25 April 2024)
12. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 31 (Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 844.