BjRagn Lv 1^VIII (Ragn 7)

Upp hrundu vér ópi
(ór bitu meir en þeira)
— satt mun ek til þess segja —
(sverð) í Gnipafirði.
Knátti hverr, er vildi,
fyr Hvítabæ útan
— né sitt spari sveinar
sverð — manns bani verða!

Hrundu vér upp ópi í Gnipafirði; sverð ór bitu meir en þeira; ek mun segja satt til þess. Hverr, er vildi, knátti verða bani manns fyr útan Hvítabæ; né spari sveinar sverð sitt!

We raised a war-cry in Gnipafjǫrðr; our swords had more bite than theirs; I will tell the truth of the matter. Everyone who was willing could slay a man outside Hvítabœr; may the lads not spare their sword!

Mss: 1824b(60v), 147(109r) (Ragn)

Readings: [1] Upp hrundu vér ópi: ‘[…] (ver opi)’(?) 147    [2] ór bitu meir en þeira (‘var bitu meir en þeirra’): ‘(v)[…]r bitu mei[…]’(?) 147    [3] satt mun ek til þess segja: ‘[…]’ 147    [4] sverð í Gnipafirði: ‘[…]erd i gn[…]’ 147    [5] Knátti hverr er vildi: ‘(kn)ꜳtt(i) h(ver)r er villdi’(?) 147    [6] fyr Hvítabæ útan: ‘fyrir […]’ 147    [7] né sitt spari sveinar: ‘[…]nar’ 147    [8] sverð manns bani verða: ‘sv[…]’ 147

Editions: Skj AII, 233, Skj BII, 253, Skald II, 131; FSN 1, 254 (Ragn ch. 7), Ragn 1891, 190 (ch. 7; misnumbered 6), Ragn 1906-8, 132, 180, 199-200 (ch. 8), Ragn 1944, 48-51 (ch. 8), FSGJ 1, 241-2 (Ragn ch. 8), Ragn 1985, 117-18 (ch. 8), Ragn 2003, 27 (ch. 8), CPB II, 351.

Context: The second of Ragnarr’s sons by Kráka-Áslaug, Bjǫrn járnsíða ‘Ironside’, reports on the battle at which the first of their sons, Ívarr the Boneless, Bjǫrn himself, and their third and fourth sons, Hvítserkr and Rǫgnvaldr, were victorious at a place named Hvítabœr, as a result of Ívarr killing the two magical cows which had hitherto protected the town. Rǫgnvaldr, however, fell in the battle.

Notes: [All]: Olrik (1892-4, II, 97-99, 101, 118-23) believes that this stanza (spoken by Bjǫrn járnsíða), along with the second half of Ragn 17 (spoken by Áslaug), Ragn 26 and 27 (spoken by Ragnarr), and Ragn 30 and 31 (spoken by Áslaug), belonged originally to a so-called death-song (ævikviða) placed in the mouth of Ragnarr, constituting a somewhat earlier version of Krm than that which survives; this death-song, he claims, formed a major source for Saxo’s account of Regnerus Lothbrog in Book IX of his Gesta Danorum. Part of Olrik’s argument is that among the verse passages in question those spoken in Ragn by characters other than Ragnarr (i.e. Ragn 7, 30, 31, and the second half of Ragn 17) would be more appropriately attributed to Ragnarr in the death-song context than to their speakers in the saga. For critical discussion of this view, see Finnur Jónsson (1905, 176-80) and de Vries (1928c, 125-6). — [1] hrundu vér ‘we raised’: The verb here is hrinda, meaning essentially ‘push (away), cast off’, here used with a dat. object in 1st pers. pl. pret. in the meaning ‘raise, utter’ (in a verb-adv. collocation with upp lit. ‘up’)’. It is not to be confused with the intransitive verb hrynja ‘tumble down’, which developed in the course of the C13th pret. tense forms identical to those of hrinda (e.g. 1st pers. pl. hrundum, from earlier hrunðum, cf. Holthausen 1896, §75, 2, 3, §252, 1; ANG §238.1b). — [4, 6]: Olrik (1892-4, II, 101, 121), noting Saxo’s account (Saxo 2015, I, ix. 4. 4, pp. 634-5) of how Regnerus Lothbrog, after winning a victory over the Scanians at Whiteby (cf. Hvítabær, l. 6), also fought successfully against the Jutes near Limfjord (ON Limafjǫrðr), suggests that Saxo understood Whiteby to be the inland village of Vitaby, situated in south-east Skåne some four kilometres due west of the port of Kivik. De Vries (1928a, 265) suggests that what originally lay behind the references in Saxo’s account and Ragn to Whiteby/Hvítabœr was the Northumbrian harbour town of Whitby, located on the coast of modern Yorkshire: not only was this town much more important than the Scanian village in viking times, but Rægnald, the viking king of York from 919 until his death in 921 (Stenton 1971, 333, 338), may well have been the historical prototype of Ragnarr’s son Rǫgnvaldr, who according to the saga prose preceding this stanza died in the battle at Hvítabœr (Ragn 1906-8, 132). The Northumbrian Whitby, de Vries claims, came to be replaced by the Scanian Vitaby in Scandinavian tradition, and it is indeed likely to be the latter, inland location to which Saxo and the saga are referring: Saxo mentions it in a Scanian context, and in the saga’s account, at least, it seems to be a land battle that is described. There can be no doubt that it is Whitby in Yorkshire that is referred to by the variant form of the name (acc. sg. of Hvítabýr [-býr] as opposed to Hvítabœr) that occurs in ESk Run 7/4^II (við Hvítabý ‘at Whitby’) in a group of stanzas documenting Eysteinn Haraldsson’s raids along the east coast of Scotland and England in 1151, see Townend (1998, 42-4, 95-6). — [4] í Gnipafirði ‘in Gnipafjǫrðr’: Finnur Jónsson (LP: Gnípafjǫrðr) indicates that metrical considerations require the vowel in the first syllable to be taken as long in a dróttkvætt line. However, the existing line, with Gnipa- retained, is málaháttr. — [5] er vildi ‘who was willing’: All eds apart from those of CPB, FSN, Ragn 1891, and FSGJ emend to at hildi ‘in battle’ here, presumably to ensure full alliteration with the following line.

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. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
9. Holthausen, Ferdinand. 1896. Altisländisches Lesebuch. Weimar: Emil Felber.
10. Vries, Jan de. 1928a. ‘Die westnordische Tradition der Sage von Ragnar Lodbrók’. ZDP 53, 257-302.
11. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
12. 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].
13. Finnur Jónsson. 1905. ‘Krákumál’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1905, 151-83.
14. Olrik, Axel. 1892-4. Kilderne til Saxses oldhistorie: en literaturhistorisk undersøgelse. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Wroblewski.
15. Stenton, F. M. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
16. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
17. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
18. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
19. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
20. Internal references
21. 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 28 April 2024)
22. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 28 April 2024)
23. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 17 (Kráka/Áslaug Sigurðardóttir, Lausavísur 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 660.
24. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 26 (Ragnarr loðbrók, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 676.
25. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 30 (Kráka/Áslaug Sigurðardóttir, Lausavísur 9)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 684.
26. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 37 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 7)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 697.
27. Not published: do not cite ()