Anon Krm 2^VIII

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi.
Heldr var ek ungr, þá er skífðum
austr í Eyrasundi
undurn frekum vargi,
ok fótgulum fugli
fengu vér, þar er sungu
við háseymða hjálma
hörð járn, mikils verðar.
Allr var ægir sollinn;
óð rafn í valblóði.

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi. Ek var heldr ungr, þá er skífðum frekum vargi undurn austr í Eyrasundi ok fengu vér fótgulum fugli mikils verðar, þar er hörð járn sungu við háseymða hjálma. Allr ægir var sollinn; rafn óð í valblóði.

We hewed with the sword. I was very young when we chopped up a breakfast for the greedy wolf east in the Øresund, and we provided a massive meal for the yellow-footed bird where tough swords sang on rivet-studded helmets. All the sea was troubled; the raven waded in corpse-blood.

Mss: 1824b(79r), 6ˣ(86r) (Ragn); R702ˣ(29r), LR(198-199), R693ˣ(5r)

Readings: [1] Hjuggu: Hjuggum 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ;    með hjörvi: so 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘med h᷎’ 1824b    [2] Heldr: so all others, ‘[...]elldr’ 1824b;    þá er skífðum: er fengum so all others    [3] í Eyrasundi (‘j eyra sunde’): á Eyrasundi 6ˣ, í Eyrarsundi R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ    [4] undurn: so 6ˣ, ‘vnd [...]rn’ 1824b, ‘undarn’ R702ˣ, R693ˣ, ‘undarm’ LR    [5, 6] fótgulum fugli fengu vér þar er sungu: corrected from ‘főtgulum fengu ver þar er svngu’ R702ˣ    [9] sollinn: ‘sollium’ LR, R693ˣ    [10] rafn (‘Rafn’): so R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘rrann’ 1824b, ‘rrafn’ with Rán in margin 6ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 641-2, Skj BI, 649, Skald I, 316; Rafn 1826, 2-3, 95-8, Pfeiffer 1860, 124, CPB II, 341, Wisén 1886-9, I, 62, Krm 1891, 225, Finnur Jónsson 1893b, 86, Finnur Jónsson 1905, 153.

Notes: [2] ek var heldr ungr ‘I was very young’: On the possible implications of this statement, see Note to st. 1/2 above. — [3] austr í Eyrasundi ‘east in the Øresund’: This is the strait separating the Danish island of Sjælland from what is now the southern Swedish province of Skåne. The fact that the speaker, here reciting his death-song, refers to the Øresund as being in the east is consistent with the fact that, according to Ragn (Ragn 1906-8, 156-9, 186-9), RagnSon (Hb 1892-6, 462-3), and Saxo (Saxo 2015, I, ix. 4. 38, pp. 660-3), Ragnarr loðbrók died in the British Isles (in Ragn and RagnSon in England, in Saxo’s account apparently in Ireland). — [4] undurn ‘a breakfast’: This seems the most satisfactory translation for undurn, meaning lit. ‘(time) in between’ and referring to the time between rising and mid-day, during which the first meal of the day was taken, around 9 a.m. (see ÍO: undorn, undarn; cf. CVC: dagmál ‘day-meal’). It is a relatively uncommon word (cf. LP: undurn; Fritzner, Fritzner IV: undorn; Ótt Óldr 4/1^III and Note there). — [5] fótgulum fugli ‘for the yellow-footed bird’: Probably the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). — [5-6, 8] fengu vér … fugli mikils verðar ‘we provided a massive meal for the … bird’: Fugli ‘the bird’ is here the dat. indirect object of fengum, 1st pers. pl. pret. of fá in the sense of ‘provide, supply’, with its direct object mikils verðar ‘a massive meal’ in the gen., a construction by no means infrequent in Old Norse poetry (see LP: 2. fáa 2, and cf. Note to st. 26/9-10 below). — [6]: This line offers the first example in Krm of skothending occurring irregularly in an even-numbered line; cf. also l. 8. Examples of this in Krm are numerous, and are disregarded in subsequent Notes. A list is given in the Introduction. — [7] háseymða hjálma ‘rivet-studded helmets’: Háseymðr, p. p., means lit. ‘nailed high up’ (LP: hôseymðr). What seem to be in question here are helmets of the type illustrated by Thordeman (1941, 93), of which fragments dating from the C5th and C6th have been found at Tuna on Gotland. This type of helmet, not commonly found in Scandinavia, appears to have consisted of a circlet from which four or six metal strips shaped like upturned Ts curve upwards and inwards, forming a conical shape, and meet at a rounded top where they are held together by a boss, the spaces between the strips being filled by convex metal plates attached from below to the strips by rivets, the heads of which appear on the exterior of the helmet. — [9] ægir var sollinn ‘the sea was troubled’: Occurring here with sollinn, p. p. of svella ‘swell’ (of the sea), the word ægir, used here as a poetic word for ‘sea’, as often elsewhere, also occurs frequently in poetry and in Skm as the name (Ægir) of a mythical sea-giant, sometimes personifying the sea (see LP: ægir; SnE 1998, II, 439, 527). Cf. the second Note to st. 5/5 below. — [10] rafn ‘the raven’: From the ms. readings this word could be taken in various ways. (a) As a variant spelling of hrafn ‘raven’ (cf. the ramn ‘raven’ of Anon Leið 16/2^VII); so most eds, printing either rafn or hrafn. The absence of <h> before <r> (or before <l>), which occurs elsewhere (though not consistently) in Krm, is a characteristic of Old Norwegian spelling (see ANG §289; cf. Finlay 2011 65) and has contributed to the view, most notably in Storm (1878, 196-9), that the poem is not originally Icelandic; see the Introduction and cf. also Olsen (1935, 79) and de Vries (1964-7, II, 39). Assuming ‘raven’ here allows all three of the beasts of battle of Old Norse poetry – wolf, eagle, and raven – to appear in one stanza, thus giving a representative view of them early in a poem very largely concerned with battles. (b) As Rafn (variant of Hrafn), a proper name, but nothing is known of the person so named (unless it is the king named Rafn in st. 6/8, below), and no previous ed. has adopted this. (c) The 6ˣ and 1824b readings might suggest Rán, the name of the sea-goddess, consort of Ægir (see LP: Rôn; SnE 1998, II, 499; SnE 2007, 13, 161), though only Valdimar Ásmundarson (Krm 1891) adopts this. — [10] í valblóði ‘in corpse-blood’: The same phrase occurs in Ghv 4/10; cf. de Vries (1964-7, II, 40 n. 69).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. ANG = Noreen, Adolf. 1923. Altnordische Grammatik I: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. 4th edn. Halle: Niemeyer. 1st edn. 1884. 5th unrev. edn. 1970. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
6. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
7. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
8. Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
9. Finnur Jónsson. 1893b. Carmina Norrœna: Rettet Tekst. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche.
10. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
11. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
12. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
13. Fritzner IV = Hødnebø, Finn. 1972. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog af Dr. Johan Fritzner: Rettelser og tillegg. Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget.
14. 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.
15. Pfeiffer, Friedrich. 1860. Altnordisches Lesebuch. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.
16. SnE 2007 = Snorri Sturluson. 2007. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
17. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
18. Finnur Jónsson. 1905. ‘Krákumál’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1905, 151-83.
19. Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 2011a. A New Introduction to Old Norse, Part II: Reader. 5th edn. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London.
20. Storm, Gustav. 1878. Kritiske Bidrag til Vikingetidens Historie (I. Ragnar Lodbrok og Gange-Rolf). Christiania (Oslo): Den Norske Forlagsforening.
21. Krm 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 225-8) of Krm as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
22. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
23. Olsen, Magnus. 1935. ‘Krákumál’. MM, 78-80.
24. Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1826. Krakas Maal eller Kvad om Kong Ragnar Lodbroks Krigsbedrifter og Heltedød efter en gammel Skindbog og flere hidtil ubenyttede Haandskrifter med dansk, latinsk og fransk oversættelse, forskjellige Læsemaader, samt kritiske og philologiske Anmærkninger. Copenhagen: Jens Hostrup Schultz; London: John and Arthur Arch.
25. Thordeman, Bengt. 1941. ‘Stridsdräkten under forntid och medeltid’. In Nørlund 1941, 89-123.
26. Finlay, Alison, ed. 2011. ‘Fagrskinna’. In Faulkes 2011a, 61-84.
27. Internal references
28. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 23 April 2024)
29. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 23 April 2024)
30. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=112> (accessed 23 April 2024)
31. Not published: do not cite (Rloð^VIII)
32. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 23 April 2024)
33. Katrina Attwood 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Leiðarvísan’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 137-78. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1022> (accessed 23 April 2024)
34. Not published: do not cite ()