Hfr ErfÓl 4^I

Hept vas lítt — á lopti
liðu ǫrvar framm gǫrva —
brodda flaug, áðr bauga
brjótendr skyti spjótum.
Orð vas hitt, at harðast,
hvarkunnt, fyr lǫg sunnan,
mest, í malma gnaustan
minn dróttinn framm sótti.

Flaug brodda vas lítt hept; ǫrvar liðu gǫrva framm á lopti, áðr {brjótendr bauga} skyti spjótum. Hitt vas mest hvarkunnt orð, at dróttinn minn sótti framm harðast í {gnaustan malma} fyr sunnan lǫg.

The flight of points was little hindered; arrows travelled precisely forward in the sky, before {breakers of rings} [GENEROUS MEN] shot spears. That was the most widely-known report, that my lord pressed forward the hardest in {the clashing of metal weapons} [BATTLE] south over the sea.

Mss: 61(67vb), 53(64ra), 54(63vb), 325VIII 2 b(1va), Bb(99va), Flat(64rb) (ÓT)

Readings: [2] gǫrva: gervar 325VIII 2 b    [5] Orð: orðit 325VIII 2 b;    hitt: om. Bb    [6] hvarkunnt: so 53, 54, Bb, hvarkunnr 61, Flat, hver kunnr 325VIII 2 b;    fyr: við 53

Editions: Skj AI, 160, Skj BI, 151, Skald I, 82, NN §§1084, 1853E; SHI 2, 299, ÓT 1958-2000, II, 265 (ch. 250), Flat 1860-8, I, 482.

Context: The stanza is cited in support of the statement that Óláfr fought the most valiantly of all the men at Svǫlðr.

Notes: [All]: The introduction in ÓT names the source poem as Óláfsdrápa ‘Drápa about Óláfr’. — [All]: The parallelism of lopt ‘sky, air’ in the first helmingr and lǫg ‘sea’ in the second (lopt ok lǫg is a common phrase in prose, with the connotation ‘everywhere’), and repeated use of framm ‘forward’, gives the stanza a powerful sense of co-ordinated, sequenced, all-encompassing action. — [6] hvarkunnt ‘widely-known’: Both main readings, hvarkunnt and hvarkunnr, have ms. support from more than one branch of the ÓT stemma. (a) The majority reading hvarkunnt (n. nom. sg. adj.) ‘widely-known’ is taken here with orð ‘report, tale, story’, and mest ‘most’ with hvarkunnt, an interpretation first proposed by Reichardt (1928, 55-7). (b) Ms. 61’s hvarkunnr is also possible, giving hvarkunnr dróttinn minn ‘my widely-known lord’. In this case hitt vas mest orð would mean ‘that was the tale of most [people]’ (Konráð Gíslason 1892, 144) or ‘[people] spoke most about that’ (Skj B). (c) A conceivable alternative, suggested by Kock (NN §1084), is to take harðast ‘hardest’ and mest ‘most’ in apposition. — [6] fyr sunnan lǫg ‘south over the sea’: The battle of Svǫlðr is described as taking place ‘in the south’ or ‘over the sea’ several times in the poem (cf. sts 4/6, 6/4, 19/4, 22/5); austr ‘east’ is mentioned once (st. 22/2), though the syntax is ambiguous. As Baetke (1951, 65-99, especially 89) notes, ‘east’ would suggest the Baltic region to a Norse audience, while ‘south’ and ‘over the sea’, although vague in themselves, support other evidence which suggests Svǫlðr was off the southern coast of the Baltic rather than in the Øresund, as other scholars have suggested. However, the question of the location of the battle remains unresolved; see Andersen (1977, 104-5) for a concise summary of the debate. — [7] gnaustan malma ‘the clashing of metal weapons [BATTLE]’: Malma is gen. pl., lit. ‘of metals’, i.e. metal weapons. The only occurrences of gnaustan ‘clashing, gnashing, tumult’ in the skaldic corpus are here and in st. 22/2, though HSt Rst 18/4 has the closely related noise-word gnaust.

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. 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.
6. Andersen, Per Sveaas. 1977. Samlingen av Norge og kristningen av landet 800-1130. Handbok i Norges historie 2. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
7. ÓT 1958-2000 = Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. 1958-2000. Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta. 3 vols. EA A 1-3. Copenhagen: Munksgaard (Reitzel).
8. SHI = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1828-46. Scripta historica islandorum de rebus gestis veterum borealium, latine reddita et apparatu critico instructa, curante Societate regia antiquariorum septentrionalium. 12 vols. Copenhagen: Popp etc. and London: John & Arthur Arch.
9. Reichardt, Konstantin. 1928. Studien zu den Skalden des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts. Palaestra 159. Leipzig: Mayer & Müller.
10. Konráð Gíslason, ed. 1892a. Udvalg af oldnordiske skjaldekvad, med anmærkninger. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
11. Baetke, Walter. 1951. Christliches Lehngut in der Sagareligion: Das Svoldr-Problem. Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Kl. 98 (6). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
12. Internal references
13. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=60> (accessed 23 April 2024)
14. Rolf Stavnem (ed.) 2012, ‘Hallar-Steinn, Rekstefja 18’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 918.