Þjsk Lv 6^I

Hvarf inn hildardjarfi
— hvat varð af Þorgarði? —
villumaðr á velli
vígdjarfr refilstíga.
Farit hefr Gautr at grjóti
gunnelds inn fjǫlkunni;
síðan mun hann í helju
hvílask stund ok mílu.

Inn hildardjarfi villumaðr, vígdjarfr, hvarf refilstíga á velli; hvat varð af Þorgarði? {Inn fjǫlkunni Gautr {gunnelds}} hefr farit at grjóti; síðan mun hann hvílask í helju stund ok mílu.

The battle-bold false one, slaughter-bold, vanished on secret paths on the plain; what became of Þorgarðr? {The sorcerous Gautr <= Óðinn> {of war-flame}} [SWORD > WARRIOR] has gone into the ground; now he will linger in Hell for a while and a bit.

Mss: Flat(28rb-va) (Flat); 4867ˣ(102r-v), 563aˣ(7) (ÞorlJ)

Readings: [4] refilstíga: refils stíga 4867ˣ, 563aˣ    [7] hann: halr 4867ˣ

Editions: Skj AI, 143, Skj BI, 134, Skald I, 74, NN §§426, 2443B, D, 2987G; SHI 3, 105, Flat 1860-8, I, 214, ÞorlJ 1883, 128-9, 158-9, ÍF 9, 226, ÍS III, 2273 (ÞorlJ).

Context: Þorgarðr, a wooden golem or trémaðr sent to Iceland by Hákon jarl to attack Þorleifr, fatally wounds the skald with a spear-thrust, but plunges head first into the ground before Þorleifr can strike back. Þorleifr holds his guts in with his cloak and speaks this stanza.

Notes: [2] Þorgarði ‘Þorgarðr’: See Context.  — [3] villumaðr ‘false one’: From villa f. ‘error, falsehood, going astray’. A note of Christian condemnation is probably present, as in the epithet fjǫlkunnr ‘sorcerous, magic-working’ in l. 6, and villumaðr usually means ‘heretic’, both in prose (CVC, Fritzner: villumaðr) and in its sole other skaldic instance (Anon Heil 10/4^VII). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) took villumaðr refilstíga to mean vildman fra vildstierne ‘wild man from the wild paths’, and in LP: villumaðr suggested the sense ‘being which appears to be a man but is not’. — [4] refilstíga ‘on secret paths’: This is taken here as acc. pl. used adverbially (so also Kock, NN §426). The sense ‘secret paths’ fits the context here and that in Gylf (SnE 2005, 7-8), where Gylfi arrives at the hall of the gods, incognito (as he thinks) and saying that he has come af refilstígum ‘from the trackless ways/secret paths’ (so Faulkes, SnE 2005, 132). The etymology and exact meaning of this rare cpd are unclear. In ModIcel. it means ‘wrong track’. De Vries (AEW: refill 3) associates refilstígar with the sea-king name Refill, which in turn is linked to refr m. ‘fox’. Janzén (1945, 187) suggests the refil- element is related to a Norw. dialect word meaning ‘tumble off’, whereas according to ÍO: refil- it is refill m. ‘strip’. Poole (2005b, 110) suggests ‘entrenched path, path along a shallow dip in the terrain’; he cites in support the word blóðrefill, which refers to the groove running the length of a sword-blade. — [5] farit at grjóti ‘gone into the ground’: Lit. ‘gone to gravel or stone’. Skj B has er sunken i stengrunden ‘has sunk into the stony ground’. — [7]: The line lacks internal rhyme and is hypermetrical because of the disyllablic síðan ‘now, since then’. (a) Kock (NN §2443D) suggests emending hann to halr ‘man’ and reading halr mun síðan í helju, and indeed halr is the reading of 4867ˣ, but his supporting arguments are not convincing and he later (NN §2987G) withdraws this proposal. (b) Finnur Jónsson (ÞorlJ 1883, 159) suggests emending síðan to sjálfr ‘[him]self’, but presents no reasons for doing so beyond the metrical problem. Given the irregularity of some other Þorleifr attributions (cf. Hákdr 1/1, 2/1; Jarl 1/1; Þjsk Lv 5/5), emendation does not seem justified here. — [8] stund ok mílu ‘for a while and a bit’: Lit. ‘a while and a mile’. The single other skaldic attestation of míla f. ‘mile’ is in the C14th Anon Heil 13/4^VII (cf. another parallel with Heil in Note to l. 3), and it is only otherwise known in late prose. The present stanza is therefore unlikely to date from the C10th.

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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
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. 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.
9. 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.
10. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
11. ÍF 9 = Eyfirðinga sǫgur. Ed. Jónas Kristjánsson. 1956.
12. 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.
13. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
14. ÍS = Bragi Halldórsson et al., eds. 1987. Íslendinga sögur og þættir. 3 vols. Reykjavík: Svart á hvítu.
15. ÞorlJ 1883 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1883. ‘Þáttr Þorleifs’. In Guðmundur Þorláksson et al. 1880-3, III, 117-63.
16. Janzén, A. 1945. ‘Revel, rävel’. ANF 60, 169-87.
17. Poole, Russell. 2005b. ‘“Orð eftir orð”, “orð eftir orði”: The Progress of the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose’. Scandinavian-Canadian Studies/Études scandinaves au Canada 15, 92-118.
18. Internal references
19. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Þorleifs þáttr jarlaskálds’ 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=50> (accessed 20 April 2024)
20. Kirsten Wolf (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilagra manna drápa 10’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 879-80.
21. Kirsten Wolf (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Heilagra manna drápa 13’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 881-2.
22. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ 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=113> (accessed 20 April 2024)
23. Kirsten Wolf 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Heilagra manna drápa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 872-90. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1016> (accessed 20 April 2024)
24. Kate Heslop (ed.) 2012, ‘Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson, Jarlsníð 1’ 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. 372.
25. Kate Heslop (ed.) 2012, ‘Þorleifr jarlsskáld Rauðfeldarson, Lausavísur 5’ 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. 375.