Anon Krm 20^VIII

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi.
Hárfagran sá ek røkkva
meyjar dreng at morni
ok málvini ekkju.
Varat, sem varmar laugar
vínkers Njörun bæri
oss í Álasundi,
áðr en Örn konungr felli.
Varat, sem unga ekkju
í öndvegi kyssa.

Hjuggu vér með hjörvi. Ek sá {hárfagran dreng meyjar} ok {málvini ekkju} røkkva at morni. Varat, sem {Njörun vínkers} bæri oss varmar laugar í Álasundi, áðr en Örn konungr felli. Varat, sem kyssa unga ekkju í öndvegi.

We hewed with the sword. I saw {the fine-haired young knight of a maiden} [LOVER] and {the close friends of a widow} [LOVERS] weaken in the morning. It was not as if {a Njǫrun <goddess> of the wine-vessel} [WOMAN] were carrying hot baths for us in Álasund, before King Ǫrn fell. It was not like kissing a young woman in the high seat.

Mss: 1824b(80v), 147(108v), 6ˣ(89v) (Ragn); R702ˣ(31r), LR(216-217), R693ˣ(13v)

Readings: [1] Hjuggu vér með hjörvi: abbrev. as ‘H . (v) m[…]’(?) 1824b, abbrev. as ‘(h’) v(’) (m’ h)[…]’(?) 147, Hjuggum vér með hjörvi 6ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, abbrev. as ‘H v. m h:’ R702ˣ    [2] Hárfagran sá ek: ‘[…] (sa eg)’(?) 147;    røkkva (‘hrauckva’): ‘(hr)auckva’(?) 147, ‘raukkva’ R702ˣ, ‘rankva’ LR, ‘ranckua’ R693ˣ    [3] meyjar dreng at morni: ‘meyiar d[...] at mornj’ 1824b, ‘meyiar […]eíng at mo[…]i’ 147, meyjar dreng enn at morni 6ˣ, ‘Meyar dreing enn vm Morgin’ R702ˣ, ‘meiardreng enn um morgum’ LR, ‘Meÿar dreng enn vm Morgun’ R693ˣ    [4] ok: so all others, ‘o[…]’ 1824b;    málvini: málvin 147, 6ˣ, R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ;    ekkju: ‘[…]kíu’ 147    [5] Varat: vara R702ˣ;    sem varmar laugar: ‘s(em v)ar(m)ar […]ugar’(?) 147, ‘sem vormar laugur’ LR, R693ˣ    [6] vínkers: ‘(vínk[…]rs)’(?) 147, ‘vinkiors’ LR;    Njörun: so R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ, ‘níurn’ 1824b, ‘[…]n’ 147, ‘niurn’ with ‘niorun W.’ in margin 6ˣ    [7] oss í: ‘os[…]’ 147;    Ála‑: ‘[…]a’ 147, ‘ila‑’ R702ˣ, LR, ‘Ila’ R693ˣ;    ‑sundi: ‘su[…]i’ 147    [8] en: om. 6ˣ, R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ;    Örn (‘aurn’): ‘[…]’ 147, ‘auru’ LR;    konungr felli: ‘(konungur f)[…]lli’(?) 147    [9, 10] Varat sem unga ekkju í öndvegi kyssa: ‘vara[...] (s)em u(n)ga eckíu [...]g kyssa’(?) 147, ‘Baud ma̋na sa ek bresta Bra þad fi̋ra lide’ 6ˣ, ‘bꜽd mana sa ek bresta bra þad fira lifi’ R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 646-7, Skj BI, 653-4, Skald I, 319, NN §1278; Rafn 1826, 16-19, 135-8, Pfeiffer 1860, 126, CPB II, 343, Wisén 1886-9, I, 65, Krm 1891, 227, Finnur Jónsson1893b, 89, Finnur Jónsson 1905, 155-6; Ragn 1906-8, 188.

Notes: [All]: In 147, R702ˣ, LR, R693ˣ and 6ˣ the present stanza and st. 19 appear in reverse order. — [2-7]: Lines 2-4, with their possible implication that dalliance with women leads to weakness in battle, prepare the way for the implied contrast in ll. 5-7 of fighting in battle with having hot baths prepared for one by women, a contrast which early translators of Krm failed to notice; see further the Note to l. 5 below.  There is a similarity with Frið 6 and 9 (see Notes to [All] in both stanzas), which may be due to influence from Krm. — [2] røkkva ‘weaken’: Lit. ‘give way, retreat’. The initial <h> in hrøkkva has been deleted to avoid double alliteration in an even line (cf. first Note to st. 2/10 above) (adopted in previous eds from Finnur Jónsson 1893b). — [3-4]: Whereas in l. 9 below, the word ekkja ‘widow’ probably means little more than ‘woman’, its use here with reference to a widow’s ‘close friends’ (málvinir), i.e. ‘speech-friends, lovers’, following the reference to ‘the young knight of a maiden’ (drengr meyjar) in l. 2, is probably intended to give the impression that warriors both young and old are in question. The kennings drengr meyjar ‘the young knight of a maiden’ and má́lvinr ekkju ‘close friend of a widow’ are two of the three cases, listed by Meissner 351, as unique in skaldic poetry, of kennings meaning ‘lover’ being used where warrior-kennings would be expected. The third is ástvinr meyja ‘dear friend of maidens [LOVER]’, at st. 23/7 below; see Note there. — [3] at morni ‘in the morning’: So also eds from Rafn (1826) to Wisén (1886-9) (inclusive). Of morgin ‘during the morning’ (mss ‘vm Morgin’, ‘um morgum’, ‘vm Morgun’) has been adopted by eds subsequent to Wisén. The addition of enn in several mss, to give enn at morni ‘still further in the morning’ adds an extra syllable to a six-syllable line. — [4] málvini ‘close friends’: In poetry this word also occurs in Guðr I 20/3 and Grott 8/3 (cf. de Vries 1964-7, II, 40 n. 69), as well as in Ketilr Lv 1/3^V (Vígl 2). The f. málvina is used in KormǪ Lv 65/1^III.  — [5-6]: For parallels to these lines in Krm and elsewhere in skaldic poetry, see the Introduction. — [5] varat ‘it was not’: Another example of the negative particle ‑at that early translators of Krm (notably Magnús Ólafsson in Worm 1636, 217) failed to notice. The same form is at l. 9. Cf. Note to st. 13/9-10 above. — [6] Njörun ‘Njǫrun <goddess>’: This name, perhaps originally a name for the earth-goddess (see de Vries 1931, 37-8, and cf. LP: Njǫrun), is listed as a goddess-name in Þul Ásynja 1/8^III; see further ÍO: Njörn, Njörun. The name is otherwise mainly attested as a base-word in kennings for ‘woman’, as here. — [7]: In 147 (108v, ll. 15-16) the ‘su’ of Álasundi appears in l. 15 and what can be read of the remainder of the word (‘[…]i’, see Readings, above) appears at the beginning of l. 16. Thus interrupted by a line break, the word is also interrupted by the words Stakk ek á storðar … ‘I thrust at the earth’s…’ (i.e. all but the final word of st. 1/9), which appear at the end of l. 15. See first Note to st. 1/9-10. — [7] í Álasundi ‘in Álasund’: Three possible locations are canvassed here, depending on which of the ms. readings is favoured, viz. Yell Sound in the Shetland Islands, Ålesund in Norway, and the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides. The Shetland and Hebrides locations would be consistent with the fact that the places mentioned in this part of Krm (sts 11-19; 21, 24) seem to be in the British Isles, and this edn favours identification with Yell Sound. (a) Álasund has been identified with Jalasund, i.e. Yell Sound, the name of the strait running between the islands of Yell and Mainland in the Shetland Isles (recorded in 1512 as Jælaswndh i Hiæltandh ‘Yell Sound in Shetland’; Indrebø 1929, 165). Álasund could be seen as a misspelling or possibly as a Norse form reflecting the loss of initial [j], in Old Norse but not in other Germanic languages, by c. 600 AD, and giving rise to cognates such as ON/ModIcel. ár, ModGer. Jahr ‘year’ (see ANG §231 Anm. 2; LP: Álasund, citing CVC (CVC: I, B. III)). The name Jala f. is recorded in Þul Eyja 4/8^III as an island-name, and Jali m. in Þul Fjarða 1/1^III as a fjord-name (see also ÍO: 2 Jala for the identification of these names with Yell and Yell Sound, respectively). (b) Álasund could possibly refer to the harbour town of Ålesund in Møre and Romsdal, western Norway. In the entry for Ålesund in Sandnes and Stemshaug (1997, 512), the unrecorded Old Norse form of this name is reconstructed as *Álasund, and the first element in the name is explained as gen. pl. of áll ‘eel’, but no early forms are given – whether because Álasund in the present stanza form was not taken into account, or because it was not believed to refer to Ålesund. (c) Mss R702ˣ, LR and R693ˣ record the form ‘Ilasundi’, a reading chosen only by CPB among earlier eds. ON Íl f. is recorded as the name of the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland; see Bkrepp Magndr 8/3^II, Sturl Hrafn 7/7^II and Þul Eyja 5/1^III. The name is of uncertain, possibly Celtic origin (see ÍO: Íl). While gen. sg. Ílar- might have been expected as the first element in Ílasund, there can be little difficulty in identifying the name as the Sound of Islay, the narrow strait between Islay and the island of Jura to its east. — [8] Örn ‘Ǫrn’: Nothing is known of this King Ǫrn, though the name, meaning ‘eagle’, may suggest some association with the god Óðinn, one of whose many names was Ǫrn, and with whom eagles were associated in a number of ways (see ARG I, 411-12; II, 64, 66-7, 69-71, 76, 139-40; Gräslund 2006, 127-9). — [9-10]: As the Readings above indicate, R702ˣ, LR and 6ˣ have, in place of these two lines as preserved in 1824b and 147, what are printed in the present edn (with some modification in l. 9) as ll. 9-10 of st. 14; see the Notes to those lines, above, and the Introduction. — [10] í öndvegi ‘in the high seat’: On this phrase, which in the present instance probably means little more than ‘in a seat at a banquet’, see Note to st. 29/6 below, with references.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Worm, Ole. 1636. [RUNER] seu Danica Literatura Antiquissima, vulgò Gothica dicta luci reddita…. Amsterdam: J. Janson.
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. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
6. 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.
7. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Wisén, Theodor, ed. 1886-9. Carmina Norrœnæ: Ex reliquiis vetustioris norrœnæ poësis selecta, recognita, commentariis et glossario instructa. 2 vols. Lund: Ohlsson.
11. Finnur Jónsson. 1893b. Carmina Norrœna: Rettet Tekst. Copenhagen: Nielsen & Lydiche.
12. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
13. Pfeiffer, Friedrich. 1860. Altnordisches Lesebuch. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.
14. ARG = Vries, Jan de. 1956-7. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Berlin: de Gruyter.
15. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
16. Finnur Jónsson. 1905. ‘Krákumál’. Oversigt over det Kgl. Danske videnskabernes selskabs forhandlinger 1905, 151-83.
17. Krm 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 225-8) of Krm as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
18. 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.
19. Gräslund, Anne-Sofie. 2006. ‘Wolves, Serpents, and Birds: Their Symbolic Meaning in Old Norse Belief’. In Andrén et al. 2006, 124-9.
20. Indrebø, Gustav. 1929. Stadnamn fraa Oslofjorden. Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1928. No. 5. Oslo: Dybwad.
21. Vries, Jan de. 1931. Contributions to the Study of Othin Especially in his Relation to Agricultural Practices in Modern Popular Lore. FF Communications 94. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia: Societas scientiarum Fennica.
22. LR = Worm 1636.
23. Internal references
24. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar in sérstaka’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=42> (accessed 19 April 2024)
25. 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 19 April 2024)
26. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Eyja heiti 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 979.
27. Not published: do not cite ()
28. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ásynja heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 762. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3190> (accessed 19 April 2024)
29. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Eyja heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 972. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3247> (accessed 19 April 2024)
30. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Fjarða heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 982. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3248> (accessed 19 April 2024)
31. Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Kormákr Ǫgmundarson, Lausavísur 65’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 287.
32. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna 6 (Friðþjófr Þorsteinsson, Lausavísur 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 201.
33. Klaus Johan Myrvoll (ed.) 2022, ‘Víglundar saga 2 (Ketilríðr Hólmkelsdóttir, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1412.