Hildibrandr Lv 4^VIII (Ásm 4)

Liggr þar inn svási         sonr at höfði
eptir, erfingi,         er ek eiga gat;
óviljandi         aldrs synjaðak.

Inn svási sonr liggr þar eptir at höfði, erfingi, er ek gat eiga; óviljandi synjaðak aldrs.

The beloved son lies there behind at my head, the heir whom I begot; unwillingly I deprived [him] of life.

Mss: 7(43r) (Ásm)

Editions: Skj AII, 321, Skj BII, 340-1, Skald II, 183, FF §33; Peringskiöld 1722, 22 (ch. 9), FSN 2, 485 (ch. 9), Detter 1891, 99, FSGJ 1, 406 (ch. 9) (Ásm); CPB I, 191, Halvorsen 1951, 13; Edd. Min. 54, NK 314.

Notes: [All]: This stanza shows close similarities both to the Old High German Hildebrandslied and to parts of Saxo’s poem. — [1-2] inn svási sonr ‘the beloved son’: The poetic adj. sváss ‘agreeable, pleasant, gracious, dear’ occurs exclusively in eddic poetry (cf. LP: sváss); when applied to persons (family members, the gods) it means ‘dear, beloved, gracious’. It is cognate with Goth. swēs ‘own’, OE swǣs ‘dear, own’, OHG swās ‘dear’, Lat. suus ‘belonging to oneself, one’s own’ and a number of other Indo-European languages (cf. AEW: sváss). This phrase bears a striking similarity to the suâsat chind ‘beloved son, boy’ of Hildebrandslied l. 53a (cf. Halvorsen 1951, 14). The phrase sonr at höfði (l. 2) may indicate that this episode too was depicted on the father’s shield, as it is said to be in Saxo, meaning that the saga prose no longer understood the original story. Thus it may rather be a reference to the dead body of Hildibrandr’s son, lying beside his dying father. The lines in Saxo (Saxo 2015, I, vii. 9. 15, ll. 6-10, pp. 508-9) are medioxima nati | Illita conspicuo species celamine constat, | Cui manus hec cursum mete uitalis ademit. | Vnicus hic nobis heres erat, una paterni | Cura animi superoque datus solamine matri ‘there stands the likeness | of my son, whose course of life this hand brought to | its boundary. He was my only heir, the one | concern of his father’s mind, given by the gods | to comfort his mother.’ — [3]: Here, as with Skj B and Skald, eptir in the sense ‘after, behind’ is construed with liggr ‘lies’ in l. 1, but other eds (e.g. Detter, Edd. Min., NK and FSGJ) understand the line as a cpd noun eptirerfingi lit. ‘inheritor after sby’ with a sense similar to Saxo’s unicus heres ‘only heir’.

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. 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. 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.
8. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
9. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
10. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
11. FF = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1922. Fornjermansk forskning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 18:1. Lund: Gleerup.
12. Detter, Ferdinand, ed. 1891. Zwei Fornaldarsögur (Hrólfssaga Gautrekssonar und Ásmundarsaga kappabana) nach Cod. Holm. 7, 4to. Halle: Niemeyer.
13. Halvorsen, Eyvind Fjeld. 1951. ‘On the Sources of the Ásmundarsaga kappabana’. Studia Norvegica 2, 1-57.
14. Peringskiöld, Johann, ed. 1722. Saugu Asmundar, er kallaður er Kappabani. Stockholm: Horrn.
15. Saxo 2015 = Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed. 2015. Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter Fisher. Oxford Medieval Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
16. Internal references
17. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ásmundar saga kappabana’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 15. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=65> (accessed 3 May 2024)