Anon (Ragn) 5^VIII (Ragn 35)

Alls engi sá ek yðvarn,
þar er upp lokinn fundum
Heilavá*g fyrir hvítum
hesti máva rastar.
Ok við lási lúðra
fyrir landi vér undum
hallar ríkri möllu
hrafns fyrir rauðum stafni.

Ek sá alls engi yðvarn, þar er fundum Heilavá*g upp lokinn fyrir {hvítum hesti {rastar máva}}. Ok við lási lúðra undum vér fyrir landi {ríkri möllu {hallar hrafns}} fyrir rauðum stafni.

I saw none of you at all where we found Heilavágr opened up before {the white horse {of the path of seagulls}} [SEA > SHIP]. And with our ships at anchor we took pleasure, offshore, {in the mighty enclosure {of the hall of the raven}} [CRAG > SEA] before the red prow.

Mss: 1824b(76r-v) (Ragn)

Readings: [1] engi: ‘einghi’ or ‘eingin’ 1824b    [3] ‑vá*g: ‘vangh’ 1824b;    hvítum: ‘hvit[…]’ 1824b    [5] lúðra: ‘ludrra’ or ‘ludrar’ 1824b    [7] ríkri möllu: ‘rika mollu’ 1824b

Editions: Skj AII, 240, Skj BII, 260, Skald II, 135, NN §1468; FSN 1, 297 (Ragn ch. 20), Ragn 1891, 222 (ch. 20), Ragn 1906-8, 172-3, 219 (ch. 19), Ragn 1944, 128-9 (ch. 21), FSGJ 1, 283 (Ragn ch. 19), Ragn 1985, 151 (ch. 19), Ragn 2003, 66 (ch. 19), CPB II, 352.

Context: The second speaker responds to his challenger.

Notes: [1] engi yðvarn ‘none of you’: Here the 2nd pers. pl. poss. adj. yð(v)arr ‘your’ (pl.), in the m. acc. sg., agreeing with and qualifying the negative pron. engi, ‘no(o)ne’, the object of sá ‘saw’, is used in a partitive sense. — [3] Heilavá*g ‘Heilavágr’: An unlocated and possibly legendary p. n. (a) The ms. reading ‘vangh’ is retained by Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) alone, without explanation. It is true that vangr m. ‘(green) field, stretch of grass’ occurs frequently as a final element in place names (CVC: vangr II; Rygh 1898, 84), but it is difficult to see how this fits with the first element, Heila-, which is almost certainly the gen. sg. of heili m. ‘brain’, unless ‘field of the brain’ referred, in the manner of a kenning, to the head as part of the body and hence conceivably to a head-shaped promontory. (b) The phrase upp lokinn ‘opened up’ in l. 2 seems more appropriate to a partly enclosed space, such as is formed by a bay or a fjord (see Fritzner: lúka upp 1). Emendation to Heilavág, acc. sg. of Heilavágr ‘Bay of the brain’ (?) is accordingly adopted here (as by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Kock (Skald)), even though this leaves the first element in the word unexplained. Heilivágr occurs in Sturl Hákkv 28/7^II heilivágr allra sorga ‘soothing balm (lit. bay) of all torments [WINE/ALE]’, but it is unclear whether it has any connection with the present p. n. (c) Bugge (1878, 53-4) and others emend to vang Heita ‘field of Heiti <sea-king> [SEA]’ (for Heiti, as a sea-king name, see Þul Sækonunga 3/4^III). (d) CPB and Rafn (FSN) emend to the meaningless varg heila ‘wolf of the brain’ (?). — [3] hvítum ‘white’: This is m. dat. sg., qualifying hesti ‘horse’, the base-word in the ship-kenning in l. 4, which according to Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 219) refers to a ship with a white sail. It is perhaps more likely that it refers to the ship’s hull, thought of as coloured like a white (i.e. a grey) horse. On its red-coloured prow, see Note to l. 8 below. — [5-8]: Previous eds apart from Kock appear to have been defeated by these lines, most especially by ms. ‘vid lasi ludrra’ or ‘ludrar’ (l. 5) and ‘hallar rika mollu hrafns’ (ll. 7-8), leaving these word-sequences unemended and untranslated. All eds read lúðrar apart from Kock (Skald) and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985), who read lúðra; Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 173 n. 1) admits lúðra (‘ludrra’) as an alternative reading. As for ms. ‘rika mollu’, which does seem to be the correct reading, all eds read ríka (or rika) mollu here apart from Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 173) and Örnólfur (Ragn 1985, 151), who read riki mollu and ríki mollu respectively, as well as the eds of CPB, who read […] miꜵllo, and Kock, who reads ríka mellu. See further Note [6-8], below. — [5] við lási lúðra ‘with our ships at anchor’: Lit. ‘at the locking-up of floating vessels’. The basic meaning of lúðr m. appears to be ‘hollowed-out tree-trunk’, from which it develops varied meanings (so Kock NN §1468; Christiansen 1952, 102, 105-6), e.g. ‘wooden stand for a millstone; cylinder-shaped wind instrument; hollowed-out wooden container; cradle’ (Fritzner: lúðr). The first three of Fritzner’s meanings but not the fourth are accepted by Holtsmark (1946). An important and contentious occurrence of the word lúðr is in Vafþr 35/6 (NK 51), where it is said that the giant Bergelmir var á lúðr um lagiðr ‘was placed on a lúðr’. Snorri’s interpretation (in SnE 2005, 11, cf. 121) of the word, seemingly as an ark on which Bergelmir escaped drowning, is questioned by Holtsmark, following Fritzner, and she assumes the meaning ‘wind-instrument’ in the present context, proposing the emendation of lási m. dat. sg. to láti, dat. sg. of læti n. pl. ‘noise’, thus giving: við láti lúðra ‘to the sound of trumpets’. However, others have envisaged nautical associations in the Vafþr context. Christiansen (1952, 105) suggests, if not ‘boat’, then a bench within a boat on which the giant was laid. Olsen (1964, 16-17 and 17 n.) accepts the meaning ‘millstone stand’ in Vafþr, but suggests that the meaning there is that Bergelmir was placed on such a stand which was then placed on a ship and abandoned to the waves; he compares Baldr’s funeral ship (SnE 2005, 46) and Scyld Scefing’s abandonment to the waves as a child in Beowulf, ll. 6-7, 45-6. See further Lorenz (1984, 152-56). Discussing in relation to Scyld Scefing the word lúðr as used in Vafþr and by Snorri, Fulk (1989, 316, 318) grants it the meaning ‘floating vessel’. Taking into account the synecdochic tendency of much skaldic diction (not least where ships are concerned, see Lie 1952, 46-50; cf. Þul Skipa 1-10^III and the first Note to 36/6, below), the present ed., with Kock (NN §1468), favours the meaning ‘ship’ for lúðr here. — [6-8]: These lines raise the question of whether undum in l. 6 is to be taken as the 1st pers. pl. pret. indic. of vinda ‘wind’ or of una ‘enjoy’, and the related question of how ms. ‘mollu’ in l. 7 is to be understood. Given the seafaring context of the preceding lines, it might be thought that undum, pret. of vinda, is here being used in a nautical sense, meaning either ‘we hoisted’ or ‘we weighed’, and that the reference is either to hoisting a sail with a windlass (at vinda segl) or to weighing anchor (at vinda upp akkeri). As for ms. ‘mollu’, this might be read as möllu, dat. sg. of malla (= mella) f. ‘loop, (small) ring’ (Fritzner IV: malla; Falk 1914b, 98-9), used here instrumentally with reference either to the hole at the masthead through which the halyard is secured in the process of hoisting the sail (Christensen 1979, 190) or to the ring joining the anchor to its cable (Brøgger and Shetelig 1951, 98, 135). It is unlikely, however, that the lines refer to anchor-weighing if the meaning of l. 5 is indeed that the ship or fleet in question was lying at anchor; and the idea of hoisting the sail is hardly consistent with the phrase fyrir rauðum stafni ‘before (i.e. ahead of) the red prow’, as Anne Holtsmark (1946, 64) points out. Reading undum here as pret. of vinda in these senses also raises the question of how the remainder of the half-stanza is to be interpreted. The present ed. therefore prefers to follow Kock (NN §1468) in taking fyrir landi as meaning ‘close to shore, offshore’; undum as 1st pers. pl. pret. of una ‘enjoy, take pleasure in’, and hallar … hrafns ‘hall of the raven [CRAG]’ (cf. hǫll gallópnis ‘hall of the shrill-crier <eagle> [MOUNTAIN]’, Eil Þdr 3/6, 7^III) as a simple kenning for ‘crag’. The present ed. also follows Kock in taking ms. ‘mollu’ as the object of undum (though with the spelling möllu as opposed to Kock’s mellu), and in taking ms. ‘rika’ as an adj. qualifying it. Kock is surely wrong, however, in simply normalising to f. acc. sg. ríka here, since una would be expected to take a dat. object. Hence the emendation to f. dat. sg. ríkri ‘mighty’, agreeing with möllu, in the present edn. Malla ‘ring’, here in the dat. sg., möllu, may be translated in this instance as ‘enclosure’ (cf. the related weak verb mella ‘lock’, ÍO: 5 mella, found in Sigv Vestv 2/3^I), and the expression rík malla hallar hrafns ‘the mighty enclosure of the hall of the raven [CRAG > SEA]’ may be read as a tvíkent kenning for ‘sea’, with the sea thought of as enclosing the land (cf. Meissner 94-5). Retention of ms. ‘mollu’ (recognisable in 1824b as the labially mutated form of malla, see Olsen 1906-8, xv), leaves l. 7 short of one alliterating element linking it to the head-stave (hrafns) in l. 8, but the lack of one out of two alliterating elements in an odd line is not uncharacteristic of the Ragn stanzas as preserved in 1824b (see the Note to 16/5-6, above). — [8] fyrir rauðum stafni ‘before the red prow’: The C11th skald Valgarðr á Velli speaks of a ship belonging to Haraldr harðráði which bar skolpt inn rauða ‘carried its red skull’ (Valg Har 10/5^II), i.e. had the carved head of a dragon, painted red, attached to its fore-stem as a prow-ornament, see Jesch (2001a, 145-7); cf Ragn 36/8, below.

References

1. Bibliography
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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. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. Jesch, Judith. 2001a. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Woodbridge: Boydell.
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.
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13. Lie, Hallvard. 1952. ‘Skaldestil-studier’. MM, 1-92. Rpt. in Lie 1982, 109-200.
14. Falk, Hjalmar. 1914b. Altnordische Waffenkunde. Videnskapsselskapets skrifter, II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1914, 6. Kristiania (Oslo): Dybwad.
15. Fritzner IV = Hødnebø, Finn. 1972. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog af Dr. Johan Fritzner: Rettelser og tillegg. Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget.
16. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
17. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
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19. Olsen, Magnus. 1964. Edda- og skaldekvad. Forarbeider til kommentar. VII. Gudedikt. Avhandlingar utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo II. Hist.-filos. kl. new ser. 5. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
20. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
21. Bugge, Sophus. 1878. ‘Tolkning af runeindskriften på Rökstenen i Östergötland: et bidrag til kundskab om svensk sprog, skrift og skaldekunst i oldtiden’. Antikvarisk tidskrift för Sverige 5, 1-148, 211-15.
22. Christensen, Arne Emil. 1979. ‘Viking Age Rigging, a Survey of Sources and Theories’. In McGrail 1979, 183-93.
23. Christiansen, Hallfrid. 1952. ‘Det nørrone ord lúðr’. MM, 101-06.
24. 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].
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26. Holtsmark, Anne. 1946. ‘Det norrøne ordet lúðr’. MM, 9-65. Rpt. in Holtsmark 1956b, 66-80.
27. Lorenz, Gottfried, ed. 1984. Snorri Sturluson: Gylfaginning. Texte, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Texte zur Forschung 48. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftlichen Buchgesellschaft.
28. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
29. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
30. Rygh, Oluf. 1898. Norske gaardnavne: oplysninger samlede til brug ved matrikelens revision. Efter offentlig foranstaltning udgivne med tilføiede forklaringer. Forord og Indledning. Kristiania (Oslo): Fabritius.
31. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
32. Internal references
33. 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 20 April 2024)
34. Kari Ellen Gade 2009, ‘(Biography of) Valgarðr á Velli’ 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. 300-10.
35. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Sækonunga heiti 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 681.
36. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Skipa heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 861.
37. Judith Jesch 2012, ‘ Sigvatr Þórðarson, Vestrfararvísur’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 615. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1361> (accessed 20 April 2024)
38. Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 80.
39. Not published: do not cite ()
40. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Sturla Þórðarson, Hákonarkviða 28’ 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, p. 720.
41. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 36 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 695.
42. Not published: do not cite ()