Þjóð Yt 5^I

Hitt vas fyrr,
at fold ruðu
sverðberendr
sínum dróttni.
Ok landherr
af lífsvǫnum
dreyrug vôpn
Dómalda bar,
þás árgjǫrn
Jóta dolgi
Svía kind
of sóa skyldi.

Hitt vas fyrr, at {sverðberendr} ruðu fold dróttni sínum. Ok landherr bar dreyrug vôpn af lífsvǫnum Dómalda, þás árgjǫrn kind Svía skyldi of sóa {dolgi Jóta}.

It happened earlier that {the sword-bearers} [WARRIORS] reddened the ground with [the blood of] their leader. And the army of the land bore bloody weapons away from the lifeless Dómaldi when the race of the Swedes, eager for good harvests, had to sacrifice {the enemy of the Jótar} [= Dómaldi].

Mss: Kˣ(18v), papp18ˣ(5r), 521ˣ(17), F(3rb), J2ˣ(9v), R685ˣ(11r) (Hkr); 761aˣ(56r)

Readings: [2] ruðu: ‘ruða’ papp18ˣ, ryðu J2ˣ, R685ˣ    [3] ‑berendr: ‑rjóðendr J2ˣ, R685ˣ    [4] sínum: Svíum R685ˣ    [5] ‑herr: ‑herra R685ˣ    [6] af: so J2ˣ, R685ˣ, á Kˣ, 521ˣ, F, 761aˣ, om. papp18ˣ;    ‑vǫnum: so F, J2ˣ, R685ˣ, ‑vanan Kˣ, papp18ˣ, 521ˣ, 761aˣ    [11] Svía: corrected from sína R685ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 8, Skj BI, 8, Skald I, 5; Hkr 1893-1901, I, 31, IV, 7-8, ÍF 26, 32, Hkr 1991, I, 18 (Yng ch. 15), F 1871, 11; Yng 1912, 22, 58-9, Yng 2000, 20; Yt 1914, 3, Yt 1925, 198, 219‑20.

Context: King Dómaldi succeeds his father Vísburr. The Swedes, plagued by famine, stage a sacrificial ceremony in Uppsala three years in a row. The first year they sacrifice bulls and the second year humans. When the famine continues, they finally sacrifice their king Dómaldi himself.

Notes: [All]: According to HN (2003, 74), Dómaldi was sacrificed to the goddess Ceres, possibly meaning Freyja: Cuius filium Domald Sweones suspendentes pro fertilitate frugum Cereri hostiam obtulerunt ‘In hanging his [Vísbúrr’s] son Dómaldr, the Swedes made an offering to Ceres for the fruitfulness of the harvest’. The supposition in ÍF 26 (and similarly Hkr 1991), that Dómaldi was first hanged and then marked by a spear in sacrifice to Óðinn, is improbable, since an offering to Óðinn is unlikely to belong within the context of fertility rites. On the contrary, this stanza of Yt clearly connects the sacrifice to a desire for good harvests. The sacrificial killing of Dómaldi has been the subject of much debate, involving contradictory conceptions of sacral kingship, royal sacrifice etc., cf. Baetke (1964, 51-68), Turville-Petre (1964, 191), and overview in Sundqvist (2002, 241-53). — [6, 8] af lífsvǫnum Dómalda ‘away from the lifeless Dómaldi’: (a) The reading af ‘from, of’ (J2ˣ, R685ˣ) is adopted in this edn, as in most eds. (b) Á ‘on, upon, to, towards’ (Kˣ, F, 761aˣ) would imply that the king was already dead when the warriors raised their weapons against him. Konráð Gíslason (1881, 217-18) assumes the idiomatic expression bera vápn á e-n ‘raise arms against sby’ and counters the objection that the weapons were already dreyrug ‘bloody’ (l. 7) by asserting that this is a descriptive epithet based on the associative link between blood and weapons (and a similar epithet occurs in st. 11/6). — [8] Dómalda ‘Dómaldi’: Two forms of the name occur: Dómaldi (Yt; Yng) and Dómaldr (Íslb, ÍF 1, 27). Turville-Petre (1978-9, 64) claims that the first element dóm-, related to dómr ‘judgement’, only occurs in Continental and OE names (cf. Dómarr in st. 6/5). The second could be traced to Gmc *-waldaz ‘ruler’, a common element in names. — [10] dolgi Jóta ‘the enemy of the Jótar [= Dómaldi]’: This kenning may refer to unrecorded military confrontations with the Jótar, the people of Jutland, or it might have been a conventional circumlocution for any (Swedish) king. Cf. also st. 19/6, which refers to Ǫnundr as dolgi Eista ‘enemy of the Estonians’. Dolgi is dat. sg. since sóa ‘sacrifice’ takes a dat. object.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Turville-Petre, Gabriel. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
4. ÍF 1 (parts 1 and 2) = Íslendingabók; Landnámabók. Ed. Jakob Benediktsson. 1968. Rpt. as one volume 1986.
5. ÍF 26-8 = Heimskringla. Ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson. 1941-51.
6. Hkr 1893-1901 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1893-1901. Heimskringla: Nóregs konunga sǫgur af Snorri Sturluson. 4 vols. SUGNL 23. Copenhagen: Møller.
7. Hkr 1991 = Bergljót S. Kristjánsdóttir et al., eds. 1991. Heimskringla. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.
8. F 1871 = Unger, C. R., ed. 1871. Fríssbók: Codex Frisianus. En samling af norske konge-sagaer. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
9. HN = Historia Norwegiæ. In MHN 69-124.
10. 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.
11. Konráð Gíslason. 1881. ‘Nogle bemærkninger angående Ynglingatal’. ÅNOH, 185-251.
12. 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.
13. Yt 1914 = Grape, Anders and Birger Nerman, eds. 1914. Ynglingatal I-IV. Meddelanden från Nordiska Seminariet 3. Uppsala: Berling.
14. Yng 1912 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912. Ynglingasaga. Copenhagen: Gad.
15. Yt 1925 = Noreen, Adolf, ed. 1925. Ynglingatal: Text, översättning och kommentar. Stockholm: Lagerström.
16. Sundqvist, Olof. 2002. Freyr’s Offspring: Rulers and Religion in Ancient Svea Society. Historia religionum 21. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library.
17. Turville-Petre, Joan. 1978-9. ‘On Ynglingatal’. MS 11, 48-67.
18. Internal references
19. (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 19 April 2024)
20. (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 19 April 2024)
21. 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 19 April 2024)