Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Sturlaugs saga starfsama 1 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Sturlaugs saga starfsama 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 783.
Kominn er Sturlaugr inn starfsami
horn at sækja ok hringa fjölð.
Hér er í húsi at höfuðblóti
gull ok gersímar; grimt er oss í hug.
Sturlaugr inn starfsami er kominn at sækja horn ok fjölð hringa. Gull er hér í húsi ok gersímar at höfuðblóti; grimt er oss í hug.
‘Sturlaugr inn starfsami (‘the Industrious’) has come to fetch the horn and a multitude of rings. Here in the building there is gold and treasures for a major sacrifice; our mood is ugly. ’
Sturlaugr and his party have travelled in Bjarmaland (Permia) and further to the Vína (Dvina) river when they see a gleaming temple (hof allglæsiligt) ahead of them. Sturlaugr and a companion, Hrólfr nefja ‘Beaknose’, enter the temple in quest of an aurochs horn, which Sturlaugr has been charged to fetch by King Haraldr gullmuðr. They see it filled with poison, but gleaming as if golden on a table in front of an icon of the god Þórr. Thirty women inside the temple speak the following threatening kviðlingr ‘snippet of poetry’ when they see Sturlaugr.
The general scenario of a hero questing in an exotic north-eastern European setting (in this case Bjarmaland), together with a pagan temple in which a temple priestess is actively engaged in blót and is hostile to the hero is reminiscent of the Bjálkaland episode of Ǫrv (see Ǫrv 59-70 and the Introduction to those stanzas, as well as Lassen 2009, 268-71).
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
Kominn er †st’†
inn starfsami
horn at †sæka†
ok hringa fjölð.
Hér er í húsi
at höfuðblóti
gull ok gersímar;
grimt er oss í hug.
kominn er Styrlaugr hinn starfsami horn at sæka ok | hringa fiold her er j husi at hofd bloti gull ok gersimar grimt er oss jhug.
(MCR)
Kominn er †st’†
†[…]† starfsami
horn at sækja
ok hringa †fiolgd†.
Hér er í húsi
höfuðblót mikit
gull ok gersímar;
grimt er oss í hug.
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