Anon (HSig) 7^II

Stór taka fjǫll at f*alla;
ferr sótt of kyn dróttar;
eyðisk friðr, en fœðisk
fjandhugr meðal landa.
Vesa munk yðr, sem ǫðrum,
angrljóðasǫm, þjóðum
— ylgr nemr suðr at svelgja
sveita — Urðr of heitin;
sveita Urðr of heitin.

Stór fjǫll taka at f*alla; sótt ferr of kyn dróttar; friðr eyðisk, en fjandhugr fœðisk meðal landa. Munk yðr, sem ǫðrum þjóðum, vesa of heitin angrljóðasǫm Urðr; ylgr nemr at svelgja sveita suðr; Urðr sveita of heitin.

Large mountains begin to fall; pestilence spreads throughout mankind; peace is destroyed, and enmity is born between nations. To you, as to other people, I shall be known as the Urðr <norn> filled with sorrowful songs; the she-wolf begins to swallow blood in the south; be known as the Urðr <norn> of blood.

Mss: Hb(69r) (Hem)

Readings: [1] f*alla: ‘fialla’ Hb    [4] meðal: ‘meðar’ Hb    [9] sveita Urðr of heitin: abbrev. as ‘s. vr. vm h.’ Hb

Editions: Skj AI, 430, Skj BI, 400, Skald I, 198; Hb 1892-6, 337-8, Fellows Jensen 1962, 45 (Hem).

Context: Cited in Hb without intervening prose after Anon (HSig) 6 above.

Notes: [1-4]: The first helmingr recalls the Apocalypse (cf., e.g. Rev. VI.14, VIII.11, IX.15-18) and is out of keeping with the different images of doom presented in Anon (HSig) 6 and 8. — [9]: The repetition of the last l. is characteristic of prophetic sts, and such repetitions are a feature of the metre galdralag ‘incantation metre’ (SnSt Ht 101^III; SnE 1999, 39, 74). In this particular case, the l. is syntactically incomplete (sveita ‘blood’ and Urðr of heitin ‘known as the Urðr’ belong to two different clauses in l. 8), but sveita ‘blood’ could be construed as a gen. qualifying Urðr (‘the Urðr of blood’). Urðr was one of the norns of fate in ON mythology (see SnE 2005, 18).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. SnE 1999 = Snorri Sturluson. 1999. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. Rpt. with addenda and corrigenda. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
4. Fellows Jensen, Gillian, ed. 1962. Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar. EA B 3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
5. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
6. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
8. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2009, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar 6’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 819-20.
9. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 101’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1209.