StarkSt Vík 27^VIII (Gautr 35)

Þess eyrendis,         at mér Þórr um skóp
níðings nafn,         nauð margskonar;
hlaut ek óhróðingr         ilt at vinna.

Þess eyrendis, at Þórr um skóp mér nafn níðings, margskonar nauð; ek hlaut óhróðingr at vinna ilt.

With this result, that Þórr shaped for me the name of traitor, distress of many kinds; inglorious, I was fated to perform evil deeds.

Mss: 590b-cˣ(6r), 152(199vb) (Gautr)

Readings: [2] at mér Þórr: so but with repetition of the whole phrase 152, at mér þar 590b‑cˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 327, Skj BII, 347, Skald II, 187; FSN 3, 35, Gautr 1900, 31, FSGJ 4, 32; Edd. Min. 42.

Context: As for Vík 26.

Notes: [All]: This stanza has only six lines in both mss but no gaps to indicate lacunae, and has other irregularities as well. Both syntax and sense suggest that the first line might originally have been part of a main clause, the rest of which is missing, while l. 3 changes to kviðuháttr, leading Gautr 1900 and FSGJ to adjust ll. 2-3 to at Þórr um skóp | mér níðings nafn. — [All]: Again, as in the previous stanza, Starkaðr attributes the cause of his apparently inexplicable behaviour, changing from loyal champion to treacherous king-killer, to supernatural powers, in this case the god Þórr. — [1] þess eyrendis ‘with this result’: One has to assume that this line is part of an otherwise unpreserved clause, which presumably related to the struggle between Óðinn and Þórr to govern Starkaðr’s fate, as reported in the prose text and also in Saxo. In particular when Óðinn granted him to live for three human lifespans, Þórr countered that hann skal vinna níðingsverk á hverjum mannzalldri ‘he will perform a níðingr’s deed in each human lifespan’ (cf. Gautr 1900, 29). The particular níðingsverk in this case is Starkaðr’s killing of Víkarr. The word eyrendi here means ‘result, consequence’ (of a particular message or action), as it does in some eddic poetry (cf. LP: ørendi), including Þry 10/1 (NK 112), Hefir þú erindi sem erfiði? ‘Have you got a result for your trouble?’ — [3]: The metre of this line is kviðuháttr. — [3] nafn níðings ‘the name of traitor’: The Old Norse noun níðingr has a semi-legal sense and encompasses the semantic range ‘wretch, worthless man, traitor, apostate’, terms that indicate that the person in question was both socially and morally undesirable (cf. Meulengracht Sørensen 1983, 31-2). The noun is strongly condemnatory, and derives from the noun níð ‘insult, shaming slander’, itself a term defined in both early Norwegian and Icelandic law codes (NGL I, 70; Grg II, 392). In Starkaðr’s case, his crime is that of treachery towards his lord, King Víkarr, whom he killed unintentionally in what he was led by Óðinn to believe was a mock sacrifice.

References

1. Bibliography
2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. 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.
5. NGL = Keyser, R. et al., eds. 1846-95. Norges gamle love indtil 1387. 5 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Gröndahl.
6. 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.
7. Grg = Grágás.
8. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
9. 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.
10. Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben. 1983. The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society. Trans. Joan Turville-Petre. VC 1. [Odense]: Odense University Press.
11. Gautr 1900 = Ranisch, Wilhelm, ed. 1900. Die Gautrekssaga in zwei Fassungen. Palaestra 11. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
12. Internal references
13. Not published: do not cite ()
14. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Gautreks saga 34 (Starkaðr gamli Stórvirksson, Víkarsbálkr 26)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 277.