Þjóð Yt 1^I

Varð framgengt,
þars Fróði bjó,
feigðarorð,
es at Fjǫlni kom.
Ok sikling
svigðis geira
vágr vindlauss
of viða skyldi.

Feigðarorð, es kom at Fjǫlni, varð framgengt, þars Fróði bjó. Ok {vindlauss vágr {geira svigðis}} skyldi of viða sikling.

The word of doom that fell upon Fjǫlnir was fulfilled where Fróði lived. And {the windless wave {of the spears of the bull}} [HORNS > BEER] was to destroy the prince.

Mss: Kˣ(15v), papp18ˣ(4v), 521ˣ(12-13), F(3ra), J2ˣ(7v), R685ˣ(10r) (Hkr); 761aˣ(55r)

Readings: [5] sikling: sigling F    [6] svigðis: svigðir F, ‘suigþ̄’ J2ˣ    [7] vágr: vargr F    [8] of (‘um’): so all others, ‘[…]’ Kˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 7, Skj BI, 7, Skald I, 4, NN §§1780-1; Hkr 1893-1901, I, 25, IV, 3-4, ÍF 26, 26, Hkr 1991, I, 15 (Yng ch. 11), F 1871, 9; Yng 1912, 19, 55-7, Yng 2000, 14-15; Yt 1914, 1, Yt 1925, 198, 212‑16.

Context: Yng relates the death of the Swedish king Fjǫlnir, son of Yngvifreyr, who, drowsy and drunk after a feast at the court of the Danish king Fróði in Hleiðra (Lejre), falls through a hole in the upper floor down into a barrel of ale and drowns.

Notes: [2] Fróði: Five different early legendary Danish kings bear the name Fróði, both in the Icelandic Skjǫldunga saga and in the writings of the Danish historians Sven Aggesøn and Saxo Grammaticus. Two of them, Fróði I and Fróði III, are recorded as kings who presided over times of peace. Likewise Yng (ÍF 26, 24) refers to a Fróðafriðr ‘Fróði’s peace’. According to Yng the king named Frið-Fróði ‘Peace-Fróði’ and Fjǫlnir were friends, and Fjǫlnir visited him at the Danish royal seat of Hleiðra (Lejre). — [3] feigðarorð ‘the word of doom’: Feigð is an abstract noun related to feigr ‘doomed, fey’. The collocation with orð ‘word’ could mean that Fjǫlnir had been cursed and was doomed to die. But it might merely express the fateful, predestined aspect of his death. In many stanzas of Yt (1/8, 3/6, 5/12, 7/8, 8/4, 9/10 etc.) the auxiliary verb skyldi ‘was to’ itself imparts this sense of predestination. — [4] Fjǫlni ‘Fjǫlnir’: In Norwegian and Icelandic historiography (HN, Íslb and Hkr) Fjǫlnir, a son of (Yngvi)freyr, is fourth in the line of the Yngling kings. These sources most likely draw on Yt in their reporting. It is certain that Fjǫlnir is a mortal king in Yt, because it refers to him as siklingr ‘prince’ (Beyschlag 1950, 37; Baetke 1964, 85-8). Yet Fjǫlnir is also clearly one of Óðinn’s names in the Poetic Edda (Grí 47/5, Reg 18/7) and in several skaldic kennings (see LP: Fjǫlnir). On the etymology of Fjǫlnir and the relationship between the two appearances of the name, see Note to Þul Óðins 2/1^III. — [5-8]: The motif of drowning in beer or mead has parallels in Scandinavia (e.g. Saxo 2005, I, 1, 8, 27, p. 134) and more widely across Europe. — [5] sikling (m. acc. sg.) ‘the prince’: The verb viða ‘destroy’ would take a dat. object (see Note to l. 8 below), for which reason Finnur Jónsson (Hkr 1893-1901; Yng 1912; Skj B) emends the mss’ sikling to siklingi, while suppressing the ok ‘and’ found in all mss on metrical grounds. In LP: viða he seems to have changed his view, for there he prints sikling (cf. NN §1780). Skald, ÍF 26 and Hkr 1991 have all chosen ok sikling. — [6] geira svigðis ‘of the spears of the bull [HORNS]’: The word svigðir is attested only here and means ‘the one with the bent horns’ (Konráð Gíslason 1881, 205; Yng 1912), cf. OIcel. sveigja ‘to bend’ and svig n. ‘bend’. — [7] vindlauss ‘windless’: This adj. qualifies, and helps to identify, the referent of the kenning, ‘beer’, which is windless, in contrast with the metaphorical vágr ‘wave’ which is the base-word. — [8] of viða ‘destroy’: Of is the expletive particle. As for viða, an inf. verb is indicated by the context, especially skyldi ‘was to’, and by numerous parallels in the poem, beginning with st. 3/6 of troða skyldi ‘had to trample’. The verb viða appears only in Yt, Brot 5/8 and Guðr II 30/6. Finnur Jónsson (Hkr 1893-1901, IV) thought it derived from the prep. við and meant ‘to move toward’, taking a dat. object. Noreen (1912a, 2-3) argued that viða was normally construed with an acc. object, but this is doubtful. Stanza 16/2 has dat. fjǫrvi ‘life’, while vígmiðlung ‘battle-dealer [WARRIOR]’ in st. 26/13 and sikling in the present stanza might be endingless datives such as occur occasionally in older sources (cf. ANG §358.3).

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. 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.
6. 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.
7. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
8. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
9. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
10. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
11. HN = Historia Norwegiæ. In MHN 69-124.
12. Saxo 2005 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2005. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum / Danmarkshistorien. Trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab & Gads forlag.
13. Baetke, Walter. 1964. Yngvi und die Ynglinger: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung über das nordische ‘Sakralkönigtum’. Sitzungsberichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Kl. 109/3. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
14. Konráð Gíslason. 1881. ‘Nogle bemærkninger angående Ynglingatal’. ÅNOH, 185-251.
15. Yng 2000 = Jørgensen, Jon Gunnar, ed. 2000b. Ynglinga saga etter Kringla (AM 35 fol). Series of Dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of Oslo 80. Oslo: Unipub forlag.
16. Yt 1914 = Grape, Anders and Birger Nerman, eds. 1914. Ynglingatal I-IV. Meddelanden från Nordiska Seminariet 3. Uppsala: Berling.
17. Yng 1912 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912. Ynglingasaga. Copenhagen: Gad.
18. Yt 1925 = Noreen, Adolf, ed. 1925. Ynglingatal: Text, översättning och kommentar. Stockholm: Lagerström.
19. Beyschlag, Siegfried. 1950. Konungasögur: Untersuchungen zur Königssaga bis Snorri. Die älteren Übersichtswerke samt Ynglingasaga. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
20. Noreen, Adolf. 1912a. ‘Till Ynglingatal’. In Xenia Lideniana: Festskrift tillägnad Prof. Evald Lidén på hans femtioårsdag, den 3 oktober 1912. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1-15.
21. Internal references
22. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Heimskringla’ 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=4> (accessed 25 April 2024)
23. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Íslendingabók’ 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=26> (accessed 25 April 2024)
24. (forthcoming), ‘ Heimskringla, Ynglinga 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=158> (accessed 25 April 2024)
25. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Óðins nǫfn 2’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 735.
26. Edith Marold with the assistance of Vivian Busch, Jana Krüger, Ann-Dörte Kyas and Katharina Seidel, translated from German by John Foulks 2012, ‘ Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal’ 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. 3. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1440> (accessed 25 April 2024)
27. Not published: do not cite ()
28. Not published: do not cite ()
29. Not published: do not cite ()
30. Not published: do not cite ()