Anon (Ragn) 4^VIII (Ragn 34)

Hafs létum vér hesta
hlýr stinn á brim renna,
meðan á bjartar brynjur
blóði dreif um síðir.
Ylgr gein aldri mönnum
eyragrán of svíra
— harð-meldri fám vér heiða
Hveðnu — blóði roðna.

Vér létum stinn hlýr {hesta hafs} renna á brim, meðan blóði dreif um síðir á bjartar brynjur. Eyragrán ylgr gein aldri of svíra mönnum, roðna blóði; vér fám {heiða harð-meldri Hveðnu}.

We made the sturdy prows {of the horses of the sea} [SHIPS] advance on the surf while blood at last sprayed onto bright corslets. The grey-eared she-wolf never gaped over necks of [our] men, reddened with blood; we obtain {the gleaming hard flour of Hveðna <giantess>} [GOLD].

Mss: 1824b(76r) (Ragn)

Readings: [6] ‑grán: ‘grat’ 1824b

Editions: Skj AII, 240, Skj BII, 259-60, Skald II, 135, NN §§1466, 1467; FSN 1, 297 (Ragn ch. 20), Ragn 1891, 222 (ch. 20), Ragn 1906-8, 172, 218-19 (ch. 19), Ragn 1944, 126-7, 129 (ch. 21), FSGJ 1, 283 (Ragn ch. 19), Ragn 1985, 151 (ch. 19), Ragn 2003, 66 (ch. 19), CPB II, 352.

Context: Here the first of the two speakers states that, on the contrary, he has engaged in the bloodiest of naval warfare, and in the kind of slaughter that ensures the winning of treasure.

Notes: [1] hesta hafs ‘of the horses of the sea [SHIPS]’: If hestr hafnar ‘horse of the harbour’ in Ragn 33/7 is accepted as a kenning for ‘ship’, it is arguable that the speaker of Ragn 34 is here outdoing the speaker of that stanza with a kenning that develops the idea of a ship further. A hestr hafnar might be thought of as a ship that seldom or never leaves the harbour, in contrast to a hestr hafs ‘horse of the sea’ which braves the challenges of the open sea. — [2] stinn hlýr ‘the sturdy prows’: Olsen (Ragn 1906-8) notes that hlýr n. can mean ‘cheek’ as well as the ‘side (of a prow)’ (cf. Jesch 2001a, 147), thus sustaining in the present instance the idea of the ship as an animate being. The eds of CPB are exceptional among previous eds in taking the <a> following stinn in the ms. not as a prep. but as the m. acc. pl. ending of a cpd adj. hlýrstinnr ‘strong-prowed’, and seeing it as agreeing here (hlýrstinna) with hesta in the previous line. This further involves taking renna ‘speed through’ (so CPB) as transitive rather than intransitive (with brim as its direct object), used in the same way as ganga ‘traverse’ in Ragn 5/7 (cf. NS §96). — [2] renna ‘advance’: The use here of the inf. form renna as opposed to the older rinna (see LP: rinna), ‘advance (upon)’, which would provide aðalhending in an even line, is mentioned as an example of a young form by Finnur Jónsson (LH II, 142), who takes it as transitive (with á as adverbial? Cf. his text in Skj BII, 260, and NS §96 (b)), but presumably as a strong verb. — [4] blóði dreif ‘blood … sprayed’: The verb dreif, 3rd pers. sg. pret. of drífa ‘drive, cause to move’ is impersonal with its object blóði in the dat. — [4] um síðir ‘at last’: The ms. form ‘siþirrr’ seems clear here, so that there is no need to emend to um/of síður ‘over the sides (of the ship)’, as all previous eds have done. — [5-8]: Ylgr gein of svíra mönnum roðna blóði ‘The she-wolf gaped over the necks of men, reddened with blood’ seems straightforward, but the remainder of the helmingr is problematic (and defeated eds up to and including Olsen), especially because aldri ‘never’ in l. 5 would seem to cancel out this conventional image of success in battle and because ms. ‘grat’ in l. 6 is difficult to account for, see the next two Notes. — [5] aldri ‘never’: The ms. reading can be retained, as here and by Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985), provided that the mönnum ‘men’ are assumed to be of the speaker’s party: they have not been overcome. Kock (NN §1466) proposes emending aldri to öldur-, thus obtaining in l. 5 the cpd noun öldurmönnum ‘noblemen’. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) more radically emends aldri to arnar and ‘eyragrat’ to eyddisk gráðr, hence ‘the greed of the eagle was destroyed (i.e. the eagle was sated)’. — [6] eyragrán ‘grey-eared’: Lit. ‘ear-grey’. The present ed. follows Kock (NN §1466) in adopting this emended form (ms. ‘eyra grat’), agreeing with ylgr f. nom. sg. ‘she-wolf’ in l. 5. For Finnur Jónsson’s solution, see Note to l. 5. Ms. ‘grat’ could be taken, as by Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985), as grátt, n. acc. sg. of the adj. grár ‘grey’, used adverbially in the sense of ‘grimly, cruelly’ (cf. LP: grár 2, and cf. ModIcel. grátt gaman ‘malicious delight’). — [7] heiða harðmeldri Hveðnu ‘the gleaming hard flour of Hveðna <giantess> [GOLD]’: An allusion to the myth of the mill of Fróði; see SnE 1998, I, 51-8, cf. SnE 2007, 21 (SnSt Ht 43^III). The present ed. follows Kock (NN §1467 and Skald) in retaining the ms. readings and assuming that -meldri is an acceptable acc. pl. form of meldr ‘flour, meal’. The fact that meldr is recorded elsewhere with gen. sg. ‑rar as well as ‑rs would suggest that an acc. pl. meldri (characteristic of i-stems) or meldra (characteristic of ‑a stems, and also mentioned by Kock) would both be possible, though pl. forms of meldr do not appear to be recorded (Fritzner, ONP: meldr; cf. ANG §358. 2). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) avoids the problem by emending to m. acc. sg. heiðan harðmeldr (hveðnu), and treating hveðna as a common noun meaning ‘giantess’, cf. the next Note. — [8] Hveðnu ‘Hveðna <giantess>’: On Hveðna as a giantess name, see under Hveðra in SnE 1998, II, 481. There seems to have been a variation between Hveðna (as here and in Hyndl 32/1) and Hveðra (Bragi Rdr 11/2^III, Þul Trollkvenna 2/7^III and Note).

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. 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.
7. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
8. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
9. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
10. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
11. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
12. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
13. LH = Finnur Jónsson. 1920-4. Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie. 3 vols. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Gad.
14. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
15. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
16. SnE 2007 = Snorri Sturluson. 2007. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
17. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
18. Ragn 1944 = Eskeland, Severin, ed. and trans. 1944. Soga om Ragnar Lodbrok med Kråka-kvædet. Norrøne bokverk 16. 2nd ed. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. [1st ed. 1914].
19. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
20. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
21. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
22. Internal references
23. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 25 April 2024)
24. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Trollkvenna heiti 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 725.
25. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Bragi inn gamli Boddason, Ragnarsdrápa 11’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 43.
26. Not published: do not cite ()
27. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 43’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1152.
28. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 33 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 689.
29. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 34 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 4)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 690.
30. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 35 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 692.