Carolyne Larrington and Peter Robinson (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Sólarljóð 1’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 296.
Fé ok fjörvi rænti fyrða kind
sá inn grimmi greppr;
yfir þá götu, er hann varðaði,
mátti enginn kvikr komaz.
Sá inn grimmi greppr rænti kind fyrða fé ok fjörvi; enginn mátti komaz kvikr yfir þá götu, er hann varðaði.
The fierce man stole property and life from the offspring of men; no one might pass alive over that road which he guarded.
Mss: 166bˣ(45v), papp15ˣ(1r), 738ˣ(80r), 155aˣ(8v), 167b 6ˣ(1r), 214ˣ(149r), 1441ˣ(581), 10575ˣ(1r), 2797ˣ(230)
Readings: [2] rænti: ræntu papp15ˣ [5] varðaði: varði 10575ˣ [6] mátti: náði papp15ˣ, 738ˣ, 155aˣ, 167b 6ˣ, 1441ˣ, 10575ˣ, 2797ˣ; kvikr: so all others, kviðr 166bˣ
Editions: Skj AI, 628, Skj BI, 635, Skald I, 308; Bugge 1867, 357, Falk 1914, 1, Björn M. Ólsen 1915, 6, Fidjestøl 1979, 60, Njörður Njarðvík 1991, 43, Njörður Njarðvík 1993, 7, 90.
Notes: [All]: The poem appears to start in medias res. — [3] greppr ‘man’: Although some mss capitalise greppr, they also erratically capitalise other nouns throughout the poem. Björn M. Ólsen (1915, 26-7) contends that both greppr and gestr (2/6) are pers. names, but this cannot be substantiated. — [4-5]: The alliteration is defective here and götu is unmetrical; the reading may have been imported from 2/6. Skj B and Skald, following Bugge, emend to of þann veg ‘over that road’ to eliminate the metrical problem. — [6]: mátti ‘might’ and náði ‘managed to’ appear in free variation across the whole ms. tradition, but náði is preferred by the majority of mss listed among the Readings. — [6] kvikr ‘alive’: This reading occurs in 62 mss; 166bˣ’s kviðr ‘belly, womb’, makes little sense in context.
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