ǪrvOdd Ævdr 10^VIII (Ǫrv 80)

Vér kaupskipi         kómum heilu
at, þar er Bjarmar         byggðir áttu.
Eyddum eldi         ættir þeira;
unnum löskvan         láðmann tekinn.

Vér kómum kaupskipi heilu at, þar er Bjarmar áttu byggðir. Eyddum ættir þeira eldi; unnum löskvan láðmann tekinn.

We brought our trading ship unharmed to where the Permians had their settlements. We destroyed their families with fire; we managed to capture a lazy guide.

Mss: 343a(80v), 471(94r), 173ˣ(61rb) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [2] kómum: so 471, 173ˣ, ‘kuonum’ 343a    [7] unnum: fengum 471;    löskvan: röskvan 173ˣ    [8] láðmann: ráðmann 173ˣ;    tekinn: tekit 471

Editions: Skj AII, 308, Skj BII, 326, Skald II, 174, NN §2603; Ǫrv 1888, 199, FSGJ 2, 343.

Notes: [6] ættir ‘their families’: Kock (NN §2603) makes a rather unconvincing case for understanding ættir to mean ‘settlements’, parallel to byggðir in l. 2. — [7-8] unnum löskvan láðmann tekinn ‘we managed to capture a lazy guide’: According to the saga prose (Ǫrv 1888, 28-31), Oddr realises that a serving man (byrli) among the Permians can speak Norse, so he captures the man and takes him to his ship. The man later acts as a guide and tells the raiding party the whereabouts of a mound full of silver. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) gives the word laðmann with a short <a>, but under LP: láðmaðr suggests that the word is probably the same as the láðmaðr ‘guide’ of Mark Eirdr 24/6^II, the only other attested use in skaldic verse. Cf. NN §2603. The noun is generally considered a loan from OE lādmann ‘pilot, guide’, which has a long vowel in the first syllable.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
8. Internal references
9. Jayne Carroll (ed.) 2009, ‘Markús Skeggjason, Eiríksdrápa 24’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 453-4.