Anon Mv I 22^VII

Enn gjörðu þeir annan
eld af harmi sveldir,
hyrjar, miklu meira,
mein bjóðandi fljóði.
Svá var æsilig eisa
elds, að hringa þellu
bandið hvert af brúði
brennr, en fjötrar renna.

Enn gjörðu þeir annan miklu meira eld, sveldir af harmi, bjóðandi fljóði mein hyrjar. Svá æsilig var eisa elds, að hvert bandið {þellu hringa} brennr af brúði, en fjötrar renna.

Again they made another, much larger fire, bloated with anger, offering the woman harm from the burning. So furious was the glow of the fire, that every band {of the fir of rings} [WOMAN] burns off the lady, and the fetters melt.

Mss: 721(13r)

Readings: [4] bjóðandi: ‘bioandi’ 721

Editions: Skj AII, 490, Skj BII, 531, Skald II, 291, NN §§1688, 1689, 2866; Kahle 1898, 35-6, 98, Sperber 1911, 6, 60, Wrightson 2001, 50.

Notes: [3] miklu meira ‘much larger’: So Skj B, Wrightson. Skald connects this with mein ‘harm’ (l. 4; see NN §1688): ‘offering the woman a much greater harm’. Mar (1871, 278) reads: Er nv gert annat bal þegar i stað myklv sterkara ‘Now a second pyre is made at once, much stronger’. See also Schottmann (1973, 363). — [4] bjóðandi ‘offering’: The missing <ð> is ensured by the internal rhyme (-óð- : -óð-). — [6] elds ... þellu ‘of the fire ... of the fir’: The internal rhyme (eld- : -ell-) is imperfect and could indicate an approximation in the pronunciation (see Note to st. 21/8 above). — [6] að (conj.) ‘that’: Skald treats this as a prep. að ‘towards’ (see NN §1689): að hringa þellu ‘towards the fir of rings [WOMAN]’. In view of the combination of svá ‘so’ (l. 5) and að ‘that’ (l. 6), that interpretation is less preferable. — [7] bandið ... af brúði ‘band ... off the lady’: The l. lacks internal rhyme, and Kock emends af brúði ‘off the lady’ to af brandi ‘from the fire’ (see NN §2866). Skj B retains the ms. reading, but connects the prepositional phrase af brúði ‘off the lady’ with the last cl. (‘the fetters melted off the lady’; so also Wrightson), again complicating the w.o. Mar (1871, 1203) offers the following reading: enn bo᷎ndin ero brvnnin af henni ‘but the bands have been burned off her’. See also Schottmann (1973, 363).

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Schottmann, Hans. 1973. Die isländische Mariendichtung. Untersuchungen zur volkssprachigen Mariendichtung des Mittelalters. Münchner germanistische Beiträge 9. Munich: Fink.
6. Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
7. Wrightson, Kellinde, ed. 2001. Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Verse on the Virgin Mary: Drápa af Maríugrát, Vitnisvísur af Maríu, Maríuvísur I-III. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series 14. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.