Rloð Lv 3^VIII (Ragn 4)

Viltu þenna þiggja,
er Þóra hjörtr átti,
serk við silfr um merktan?
Sama allvel þér klæði.
Fóru hendr hvítar
hennar um þessar görvar;
sú var buðlungi bragna
blíðum þekk til dauða.

Viltu þiggja þenna serk, um merktan við silfr, er Þóra hjörtr átti? Klæði sama þér allvel. Hvítar hendr hennar fóru um þessar görvar; sú var þekk {blíðum buðlungi bragna} til dauða.

Are you willing to accept this shift, decked out with silver, which Þóra hjǫrtr (‘Hart’) possessed? [Such] garments suit you very well. Her white hands stroked these trappings; she was dear {to the joyful prince of men} [KING = Ragnarr] right up to her death.

Mss: 1824b(58r) (Ragn); 762ˣ(2v)

Readings: [3] serk: so 762ˣ, serkr 1824b    [4] Sama: sóma 762ˣ    [8] blíðum: ‘Brúd, mier’ 762ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 233, Skj BII, 252, Skald II, 131; FSN 1, 248 (Ragn ch. 5), Ragn 1891, 185 (ch. 5), Ragn 1906-8, 126-7, 197-8 (ch. 6), Ragn 1944, 38-9 (ch. 6), FSGJ 1, 236 (Ragn ch. 6), Ragn 1985, 113 (ch. 6),  Ragn 2003, 22 (ch. 6), CPB II, 347.

Context: In an attempt to persuade Kráka-Áslaug to come away with him, Ragnarr offers her a richly embroidered shift which had belonged to his deceased wife Þóra.

Notes: [All]: It has not proved possible to recover meaningful traces of this or the next stanza from 147 in its present state of preservation. Nevertheless, it is likely that these two stanzas were present there on fol. 106v. — [2] Þóra hjörtr ‘Þóra hjǫrtr (“Hart”)’: In the prose of the saga, Þóra, when first introduced (Ragn 1906-8, 116), is said to have been called borgarhjörtr ‘Castle-hart’ because she surpassed all women in beauty, just as the hart surpasses other animals. — [3] um merktan ‘decked out’: Both mss here, and in the parallel st. 5/3, have the more archaic pleonastic particle of, which has been normalised here to the later um, in keeping with the practice of this volume to present texts in the language of the period 1250-1300. See further Ásm 1/3, 5 and Note there. — [4] allvel ‘very well’: All previous eds, including Olsen, accept this reading, on which the mss agree. Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 198), however, notes a personal communication from Sophus Bugge suggesting that a n. pl. adj. such as allvæn meaning ‘very fine, splendid’, and qualifying klæði n. pl. ‘garments’ might have been expected here, as a contrast and balance to ælig ‘wretched’, used attributively with klæði in the corresponding l. 4 of Ragn 5. — [5-6]: Apart from CPB, FSN, Ragn 1891, FSGJ and Ragn 1985, previous eds reverse the order of hendr and hennar here, presumably in order to give l. 5 six rather than five syllables. The present ed. follows those just named in retaining the 1824b reading (as opposed to that of 762ˣ, which has the Modern Icelandic disyllabic form hendur), accepting it as another of the metrical anomalies that characterise the stanzas of Ragn.

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
6. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
7. 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].
8. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
9. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
10. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
11. Internal references
12. 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 5 May 2024)
13. Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 1 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 16.
14. 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.