Arn Þorfdr 16^II

Enn vas, sús Engla minnir,
egghríð, né mun síðan
hôr við helming meira
hringdrífr koma þingat.
Bitu sverð, en þar þurði,
þunngǫr, fyr Mǫn sunnan
Rǫgnvalds kind, und randir
ramlig folk, ins gamla.

Enn vas {egghríð}, sús Engla minnir, né mun {hôr hringdrífr} síðan koma þingat við meira helming. Þunngǫr sverð bitu ramlig folk und randir, en {kind Rǫgnvalds ins gamla} þurði þar fyr sunnan Mǫn.

Then came {the edge-blizzard} [BATTLE] which the English remember, and never after will {a lofty ring-strewer} [GENEROUS RULER] come there with a larger force. Slender-wrought swords bit the mighty troops beneath their shields, and {the descendant of Rǫgnvaldr inn gamli (‘the Old’)} [= Þorfinnr] rushed forth there south of Man.

Mss: R702ˣ(38r), Flat(132ra) (Orkn); R(36v), Tˣ(38r), W(82), U(35v) (SnE, ll. 5-8)

Readings: [1] Enn: Ein Flat    [3] hôr: hátt Flat    [4] ‑drífr: so Flat, ‘(mi)’(?) R702ˣ;    koma: ‘komid’ R702ˣ, komit Flat;    þingat: so Flat, hingað R702ˣ    [5] þurði: so Flat, U, þorði R702ˣ, þurðir R, þurðu Tˣ, W    [6] fyr (‘fyrir’): yfir U;    Mǫn: so all others, ‘Mani’ R702ˣ    [7] und: en U    [8] ‑lig: ‑ligt Flat, U

Editions: Skj AI, 346, Skj BI, 319, Skald I, 161-2, NN §832; Flat 1860-8, II, 412, Orkn 1913-16, 64, ÍF 34, 61 (ch. 24); SnE 1848-87, I, 462-3, II, 338, SnE 1931, 164, SnE 1998, I, 82-3, 206; Whaley 1998, 250-3.

Context: In Orkn, Þorfinnr successfully wins a grim battle in England, supported by Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason and troops from Orkney, Caithness and elsewhere in Scotland, Ireland and the Hebrides. The jarls then plunder, kill and burn widely. In SnE, the second helmingr occurs in the same context as Arn Rǫgndr 2 and Þorfdr 4, and is quoted to illustrate the kenning kind Rǫgnvalds ‘descendant of Rǫgnvaldr’.

Notes: [All]: SnE explicitly states that the st. concerns Þorfinnr jarl. — [2, 4] né mun síðan … koma ‘and never after will … come’: Mss ‘komid/komit’ is syntactically unsatisfactory and could well be due to a misreading. The emendation to koma was favoured by Kock (NN §832) and Finnbogi Guðmundsson (ÍF 34, 61). — [4] hringdrífr ‘ring-strewer [GENEROUS RULER]’: The reading of the main ms., ‘hring mi’, makes no sense. — [4] þingat ‘there’: (a) The variant þingat ‘thither, there’, i.e. ‘to England’ or ‘south of Man’ gives excellent sense and is adopted here. (b) Né mun síðan komit hingat in R702ˣ is interpreted as ‘(it will not henceforth) be made known to us’ (til vor fregnad) in Magnús Ólafsson’s gloss to the st. in R702ˣ, but to take koma in the sense ‘be made known, reported’ is somewhat forced. — [5, 7] kind Rǫgnvalds … þurði ‘the descendant of Rǫgnvaldr [= Þorfinnr] … rushed forth’: The role of the noun phrases ramlig(t) folk ‘mighty troop/troops’ (l. 8) and kind Rǫgnvalds ‘the descendant of Rǫgnvaldr’ is ambiguous: each could be nom., the subject of þurðu/þurði ‘rushed’, or acc., object of bitu sverð ‘swords bit’. However, the hero Þorfinnr is more likely to be depicted rushing forward than being pierced by swords, and so þurði is adopted here with the kind-phrase as its subject. (b) Finnbogi Guðmundsson (ÍF 34, 61 n.) suggested that kind was dat., hence presumably bitu sverð kind Rǫgnvalds ‘swords bit for Rǫgnvaldr’s descendant’ (and cf. Faulkes in SnE 1998, I, 206). But there is nothing in the syntax to show that kind is not acc. sg., which would yield the sense that the hero was wounded, so this seems unlikely. (c) It appears that the scribes of mss Tˣ and W, and probably of U and Flat, took ‘mighty troop’ as the subject of ‘rushed’, since the two mss (Tˣ and W) which read pl. þurðu also have pl. ramlig folk, while the two (U and Flat) which read sg. þurði also have sg. ramligt folk. Skj B adopts þurðu and ramlig folk. (d) The variant þorði ‘dared’ (so R702ˣ) could make sense, but the ms. evidence is against it. — [6] þunngǫr ‘slender-wrought’: The adj. is unique in recorded ON, but þunngjör/-ger is recorded for ModIcel. in Sigfús Blöndal 1920-4, as are fínger(ður) ‘fine-wrought’ and smáger(ður) ‘small-wrought’ and cf. ON þunnsleginn ‘hammered thin’ (Fritzner IV). — [6] Mǫn ‘Man’: Mani (dat. sg.) in the main ms. has no parallel in ON, Mǫn being the usual form. It either represents a misreading or is influenced by the Celtic forms of the name (Manu and variants, Hogan 1910, 536). — [7, 8] kind Rǫgnvalds ins gamla ‘the descendant of Rǫgnvaldr inn gamli (“the Old”) [= Þorfinnr]’: Rǫgnvaldr is called inn ríki ok inn ráðsvinni ‘the powerful and wise-counselled’ in Orkn ch. 3 (ÍF 34, 7), never inn gamli, which may be designed to distinguish him from Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason; see further Note to st. 2/4.

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. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
6. Sigfús Blöndal. 1920-4. Islandsk-dansk ordbog / Íslensk-dönsk orðabók. Reykjavík, Copenhagen and Kristiania (Oslo): Verslun Þórarins B. Þorlákssonar / Aschehoug.
7. Whaley, Diana, ed. and trans. 1998. The Poetry of Arnórr jarlaskáld: An Edition and Study. Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies 8. Turnhout: Brepols.
8. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
9. ÍF 34 = Orkneyinga saga. Ed. Finnbogi Guðmundsson. 1965.
10. SnE 1931 = Snorri Sturluson. 1931. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Ed. Finnur Jónsson. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
11. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
12. Hogan, Edmund Ignatius. 1910. Onomasticon Goedelicum locorum et tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae: An Index, with Identifications, to the Gaelic Names of Places and Tribes. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, & Co. and London: Williams & Norgate.
13. Fritzner IV = Hødnebø, Finn. 1972. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog af Dr. Johan Fritzner: Rettelser og tillegg. Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget.
14. Orkn 1913-16 = Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1913-16. Orkneyinga saga. SUGNL 40. Copenhagen: Møller.
15. Internal references
16. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
17. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Orkneyinga saga’ 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, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=47> (accessed 24 April 2024)
18. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Rǫgnvaldsdrápa 2’ 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, p. 180.
19. Diana Whaley (ed.) 2009, ‘Arnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Þorfinnsdrápa 4’ 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. 234-5.