Án Lv 1^VIII (Án 1)

Skeldi mér sem skyldi
skelkinn maðr við belki;
við máttak þá vætki
vinna; svei þeim æ manni.
Varð í fang at fallaz;
feldum eldsmat nökkut
honum synjaðak heiðri;
svei þeim æ manni.

Skelkinn maðr skeldi mér við belki sem skyldi; máttak þá vinna vætki við; svei þeim manni æ. Varð at fallaz í fang; feldum {eldsmat} nökkut; synjaðak honum heiðri; svei þeim manni æ.

The man fond of mockery dashed me against the wall as he should; I was able to put up no resistance then; fie upon that man forever. It was necessary to grapple with each other; we [I] felled {fire-nourishment} [FIRE-WOOD] in some way; I deprived him of honour; fie upon that man forever.

Mss: 343a(83r), 109a Iˣ(5v) (Án)

Readings: [2] maðr: niðr 109a Iˣ    [3] þá: þótt 109a Iˣ    [4] svei: snar 109a Iˣ;    æ: á 109a Iˣ    [6] ‑mat nökkut: sinns at mikit 109a Iˣ    [8] svei þeim æ manni: sneri þeim at manni 109a Iˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 319, Skj BII, 339, Skald II, 182, NN §§1482-3, 2611; FSN 2, 334, FSGJ 2, 376.

Context: Án speaks this stanza after a wrestling match with a man named Bjǫrn inn sterki ‘the Strong’, a retainer of King Ingjaldr who has made fun of Án. In the first round Bjǫrn lifts Án up and casts him to the ground so that his shoulders land in the fire and his feet strike the beam in the wall (bálkr). Since Án is wearing a long loden coat he suffers no burns. In the second round Án swings Bjǫrn to and fro as if Bjǫrn were a small child and then slings him into the fire where he suffers severe burns.

Notes: [All]: The metre of this stanza is an irregular variant of dróttkvætt. Finnur Jónsson and Kock regard the inf. vinna as the first word of the final half-line in the first helmingr, so that there is a full stop before the sentence svei þeim æ manni (Skj B, Skald; on their alterations of the wording cf. the Note to ll. 4, 8 below). They thus regard the words við máttak þá vætki | vinna; svei þeim æ manni as a long-line with alliteration on <v>; this division of ll. 3-4 has a basis in most of the mss. The sentence svei þeim æ manni occurs again at the end of the second helmingr, where it is preceded by the sentence honum synjaðak heiðri ‘I deprived him of honour’. In that sentence the words honum and heiðri seem to alliterate, with emphatic alliteration on the pers. pron. honum: ‘him I deprived of honour’. In this case the words honum … manni could not be a long-line with alliteration on <s>: honum synjaðak heiðri; | svei þeim æ manni. Previous eds (Finnur Jónsson, Kock) have emended the text by supplying or suggesting various words beginning with <h> at the beginning of the final half-line, so that the final long-line of the stanza would read: honum synjaðak heiðri | heldr; svei þeim æ manni ‘I rather deprived him of honour … ’ (Skj B); honum synjaðak heiðri | hála; svei þeim æ manni ‘I guilefully deprived him of honour … ’ (Skald); honum synjaðak heiðri | harðla; svei þeim æ manni ‘I very much deprived him of honour … ’ (NN §2611). On Kock’s further emendation of the final half-line of the stanza cf. the Note to ll. 4, 8. If the text is not emended in the ways Finnur Jónsson or Kock suggest, one could regard the two sentences við máttak þá vætki vinna; | svei þeim æ manni at the end of the first helmingr and the two sentences honum synjaðak heiðri; | svei þeim æ manni at the end of the second helmingr as two full-lines respectively, albeit the final line of each helmingr (svei þeim æ manni) contains no words which alliterate. Finnur Jónsson and Kock present the stanza as one in fornyrðislag or málaháttr, but the pre-requisite for this is their addition of a word beginning with <h> before the words svei þeim æ manni at the end of the stanza (see above). The present edn follows the ms. tradition in presenting the first helmingr as four half-lines with six metrical positions (l. 4 has seven), with the inf. vinna as the first word of l. 4. Given the probable double alliteration on <h> in l. 7 honum synjaðak heiðri, the refrain in l. 8 has no alliteration and only five metrical positions. — [1] sem skyldi ‘as he should’: In most previous eds the verb skyldi ‘should’ is emended to skyldit ‘should not’, presumably because it is thought that the stanza should indicate that Án is stronger than Bjǫrn and thus that Bjǫrn should not have overcome Án in the first round of the wrestling match. However, the prose exchange between Án and King Ingjaldr after the first round of the match suggests otherwise (FSGJ 2, 375): Konungr mælti þá: ‘Eigi þykkir mér þú, Án, jafnsterkr sem þú lézt.’ Án mælti: ‘Sá þykki mér, konungr, sterkari, er fyrri fellr’ ‘Then the king said: “It doesn’t seem to me as if you were as strong as you said, Án.” Án said: “The one who falls first seems to me the stronger of the two, king”’. — [2] skelkinn ‘fond of mockery’: This word is interpreted by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) as meaning spottelysten ‘given to mockery, malicious’ (cf. the verb skelkja ‘mock’ and the noun skelkr ‘mockery’). LP: 2. skelkinn, 2. skelkja, 2. skelkr suggests that both the adj. skelkinn and the verb skelkja are related to the noun skálkr ‘servant, rogue’. There are homonyms to most of these words: LP: 1. skelkinn ‘fearful’, 1. skelkja ‘frighten’, 1. skelkr ‘fright, fear’. Both skelkinn ‘fearful’ and skelkinn ‘given to mockery’ apparently occur only once each (LP: 1.-2. skelkinn); the sense ‘mocking’ makes better sense in this stanza than the sense ‘fearful’. — [4, 8] svei þeim manni æ ‘fie upon that man forever’: This curse occurs like a refrain in the same form at the end of each helmingr. Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ) both omit the adv. æ ‘forever’ in l. 4 but retain it in l. 8, presumably because the adv. produces a seven-syllable line in l. 4. Kock proceeds on the assumption that the curse in l. 4 is repeated in identical form in l. 8 (NN §§1482, 2611); however, he regards the reading þæim æ as a way of writing þæima or þema, a variant of the m. sg. dat. form þessom of the demonstrative pron. sjá ‘this’ (NN §2611; ANG §470). — [5] at fallaz í fang ‘to grapple with each other’: These words can be translated lit. as ‘to let oneself fall into a [wrestling] grip’. They refer to grappling with one’s opponent in the wrestling match, not, as Kock thinks (NN §1483), to Björn’s fall (death) during the wrestling match. The construction verða at + inf. means ‘must, be forced, obliged to (do sth.)’. Since there is no explicit subject in this sentence it is unclear whether the pret. indic. verb varð is the 1st pers. sg. or the 3rd pers. sg. In the first case the speaker, Án, would be the putative subject. In the second case the putative subject could be ‘he’ (= Bjǫrn), and this is the interpretation favoured by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) and Kock (Skald; NN §1483). The 3rd pers. sg. could however also be understood as a general statement about the situation, from the perspective of Án: ‘one was obliged to let oneself fall into a grip’ or ‘it was necessary to let oneself fall into a grip’. If varð at is understood in this latter, non-personal sense, the phrase fallaz í fang could also be interpreted in a reciprocal sense (m. v.): ‘fall into each other’s grip’, i.e. ‘grapple, wrestle with each other’: thus ‘it was necessary to grapple with each other’. — [6] feldum eldsmat nökkut ‘we [I] felled fire-nourishment [FIRE-WOOD] in some way’: The n. sg. nökkut is used adverbially here. Depending upon how the 1st pers. pl. verb form felldum is interpreted, the line either refers to the fact that each man threw his opponent into the fire, or, if Án is speaking of himself in the 1st pers. pl., which seems more likely from the prose context, to the fact that Án caused Björn to be burned by pitching him into the fire. The kenning eldsmatr ‘fire-nourishment’ refers to Björn and metaphorically equates him with fire-wood.

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. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
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. 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.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.