Anon Mv I 24^VII

Hvergi rann á hennar
hár í loganum sárum;
klæðin fögr á fljóði
fölna eigi nie völna.
Hildr giekk hrings ór eldi
hæg og kyrr sem fyrri;
naut hun Máríu mætrar
miskunnar óbrunnin.

Rann hvergi á hár hennar í sárum loganum; fögr klæðin á fljóði fölna eigi nie völna. {Hildr hrings} giekk ór eldi, hæg og kyrr sem fyrri; óbrunnin naut hun miskunnar mætrar Máríu.

Her hair was not at all touched in the bitter flame; the fair clothes on the woman neither fade nor shrivel. {The Hildr <valkyrie> of the ring} [WOMAN] walked out of the fire, calm and quiet as before; unburned, she enjoyed the mercy of glorious Mary.

Mss: 721(13r)

Readings: [5] Hildr: heldr 721

Editions: Skj AII, 491, Skj BII, 531, Skald II, 291, NN §2868; Kahle 1898, 36, 98, Sperber 1911, 6-7, 60, Wrightson 2001, 51.

Notes: [4] völna ‘shrivel, wither’: This is a hap. leg. It is most likely cognate with OE wealwian ‘dry up, shrivel, wither, decay’ (ModE dial. wallow) and ModNorw. valen ‘numb from cold’ (cf. the parallels ON fǫlna ‘grow pale, shrivel, decay’ and OE fealwian ‘become fallow, fade, wither’). See NN §2868 and AEW: vǫlna. — [4] eigi ‘neither’: Lit. ‘not’. The l. is unmetrical (heptasyllabic), and the poet could have used the short form ei ‘neither, not’. — [5] Hildr hrings ‘The Hildr <valkyrie> of the ring [WOMAN]’: The ms. reads heldr (adv.) ‘rather’, but the emendation is necessary to provide a base-word for the determinant hrings ‘of the ring’. — [8] óbrunnin ‘unburned’: This adj. could also go with the first cl. in this helmingr (so earlier eds). Mar (1871, 278, 1204) provides the following parallels: at þvi siðr grandaði elldrinn hennar likama, at hvergi rann a hennar kløði eða hár ‘that so little did the fire harm her body that neither her clothes nor her hair were touched’; [þ]essi fyrr sogd kona geck suo brott or elldinum, ok eigi at eins var oskaddr og heill hennar likamr, helldr ok var obrunnin klædi og hꜳr ‘this aforementioned woman walked out of the fire thus, and not only was her body unharmed and healthy, but the clothes and hair were unburned’. See also Schottmann (1973, 363).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
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.