Forað Lv 4^VIII (Ket 24)

Gang hóf ek upp í Angri,         eigraða ek á til Steigar;
skálm †glotadrra skroptu†,         sk*arn tadda ek á til Karmtar,
elda mun ek á Jaðri         ok at Útsteini blása.
Þá mun ek austr við Elfi,         áðr dagr á mik skíni,
ok með brúðkonum beigla         ok bráðliga gefit jarli.

Ek hóf upp gang í Angri, ek eigraða á til Steigar; skálm †glotadrra skroptu†, ek tadda sk*arn á til Karmtar, ek mun elda á Jaðri ok blása at Útsteini. Þá mun ek austr við Elfi, áðr dagr skíni á mik, ok beigla með brúðkonum ok bráðliga gefit jarli.

I began my expedition in Angr, I sauntered on to Steig; [my] short sword … , I spread dung [on the way] to Karmøy, I will kindle fire in Jæren and blow at Utstein. Then I will go east near the Götaälv, before day shines upon me, and lumber about with the bridesmaids and at once be given [in marriage] to the jarl.

Mss: 343a(56v), 471(54r) (Ket)

Readings: [2] eigraða: eigraði 471    [3] †glotadrra skroptu†: ‘glamtadrar skrumtu’ 471    [4] sk*arn tadda ek á: ‘skrarm radri ek á’ 343a, skarmta ek á 471    [7] Þá mun ek austr: austr skal ek 471    [9] ok: om. 471;    ‑konum: ‑gum 471;    beigla: ‘brigla’ 471    [10] bráðliga gefit: brátt gefin 471

Editions: Skj AII, 284, Skj BII, 305, Skald II, 161, NN §1478; FSN 2, 129-30, FSGJ 2, 171, Anderson 1990, 53, 99.

Context: Forað describes the course and purpose of her journey in response to Ketill’s question at the end of the previous stanza. The present stanza is introduced by the words: Hún þokaði at honum við ok kvað ‘She approached him at that and said’.

Notes: [All]: This list of a variety of tasks performed and places visited by Forað is somewhat reminiscent of Grettir’s account of his behaviour in Anon Grf^V(Gr) (cf. Heslop 2006b). — [All]: The prose passage immediately following this stanza provides the comment that Forað’s itinerary takes her along the whole length of Norway, as attested by the various place-names in the stanza: Angr (l. 1) is an arm of the Hardangerfjord, (see Þul Fjarða 1/3^III and Note) but Finnur Jónsson (LP: 2. Angr) thinks that the name in this stanza refers to a fjord farther north (Varanger in Helgeland [= Varangerfjorden in northern Norway?]); Steig (Steigen, l. 2) is the name of a place on Engeløya on Vestfjorden in Nordland, Helgeland, Kǫrmt (l. 4) is Karmøy in Rogaland off the coast of western Norway, Jaðarr (Jæren, l. 5) is the southernmost part of the western coast of Norway and Útsteinn (l. 6) is on the island of Mosterøy in Boknafjorden in Rogaland; Elfr (l. 7) is the Old Norse name of the Götaälv river, which formed the borderland between Norway and Sweden in the Middle Ages (Nielsen et al. 1969, 201, 211; see LP under the various Old Norse place names). — [2] ek eigraða á til Steigar ‘I sauntered on to Steig’: This is the only occurrence of the verb eigra in poetry. Since á is an adv. it evidently alliterates with eigraða and the two alliterating words in the first half-line, the adv. upp and the place-name Angri. The second half-line of the long-line thus has two alliterating words, a fairly common phenomenon in eddic metres. — [3] skálm †glotadrra skroptu† ‘[my] short sword …’: In both mss (343a, 471) which have ll. 1-4 of this stanza, the text of ll. 3-4 is corrupt. In l. 3 the forms ‘glotadrra’ (343a), ‘glamtadrar’ (471) and ‘skrumtu’ (471) cannot be identified as Old Norse words and 343a’s ‘skroptu’ must be emended to skrapti ‘it clattered’ (3rd pers. sg. pret. of skrapa) to make sense. The form glotadr- resembles the p. p. of glata ‘destroy’, glataðr, and also the agent noun glǫtuðr ‘destroyer’ derived from glata. Skj B and Skald emended l. 3 to read: skálm glamrandi skrapti, which Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) translates as mit sværd dinglede og klirrede ‘my sword swung to and fro and clattered’ and could be translated more literally as ‘my sword, making a noise, clattered’. It is unlikely, however, that there would be two verbal elements in the line, and, in conformity with all the other lines in this stanza (except for ll. 8-10), it seems possible that the last word in l. 3 is a p. n. — [4] ek tadda sk*arn á til Karmtar ‘I spread dung [on the way] to Karmøy’: Both 343a and 471, the only mss which have the stanza in the form given above, have the adv. á (‘ꜳ’) between the pron. ek and the prepositional phrase til Karmtar. Anderson (1990, 53 n. 152) indicates that it is uncertain whether the form which she prints as rada (343a) should not be read as ‘tada’, while Valgerður Erna Þorvaldsdóttir read ‘radri’ (transcription for this edn). Since the form ‘skrarm’ strongly resembles the noun skarn ‘dung’ and a form ‘tada’ could be a way of writing tadda (3rd pers. sg. pret. of teðja ‘dung, manure’) one could perhaps conjecture that the line in 343a should read skarn tadda ek á til Karmtar ‘I spread dung [on the way] to Karmøy’. Such a phrase would allude to labours which Forað has performed during her journey through Norway (cf. the mention of the fire she will kindle, etc. in ll. 5-6). Previous eds adopt the reading skarmtak (skarmta ek) from 471, which Finnur Jónsson tentatively translates as skræve (?) ‘stride?’ but does not include in LP. ÍO: †skarma believes that the form skarmta is the 1st pers. sg. pres. tense; the inf. *skarmta would mean ‘stumble along; drag oneself along’. — [5-6]: Finnur Jónsson believed that both parts of this long-line refer to cooking activities: to the kindling of a cooking-fire and to blowing on it to make it burn (see the translation in Skj B). This would be parallel to Ketill’s declaration in the following prose passage: he intends to prepare himself a meal (cf. Context to Ket 25). Forað however states that she will kindle a fire in one place and ‘blow’ in another. Since storms caused by giantesses (and giants) are a common motif (see Schulz 2004, 179-82) it seems entirely plausible that the fire and the ‘blowing’ she mentions here do not refer to a peaceful activity such as cookery (albeit tending a fire is characteristic of giants, see Note to Ket 13/1-3 above), but rather to a destructive conflagration and to a storm which Forað intends to bring about on her way to the marriage festivities in Sweden. — [8] áðr dagr skíni á mik ‘before day shines upon me’: This temporal clause indicates how far Forað must travel before daybreak, namely to the borderland between Norway and Sweden (Götaälv). The wording however also evokes the motif of the petrification of giants when the rays of the sun fall upon them; cf. HHj 29-30. — [9] ok beigla með brúðkonum ‘and lumber about with the bridesmaids’: In 471 this line reads með brúðgum brigla: brúðgum and brigla cannot be identified as Old Norse words, but brúðgum could be an incorrect form of brúðgumi ‘bridegroom’. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (ÍO) lists a verb bríglast (m. v.) which he regards as a dialect form equivalent to brenglast ‘become mixed up’. Ms. 340ˣ reads ok með búkonum beigla ‘and lumber about with the farm-women’. The verb beigla is a late word, attested several times in rímur (Finnur Jónsson 1926-8: beigla). — [10] ok bráðliga gefit jarli ‘and at once be given [in marriage] to the jarl’: The saga does not give any background to this statement, but other texts provide examples of giantesses who aspire to marriage or an erotic relationship with a human man (e.g. HHj 24; see Kommentar IV, 512 to HHj 24/4-5; Schulz 2004, 199-203). Some previous eds (Skj B, Skald, FSGJ) adopt 471’s line ok brátt gefin jarli ‘and be given at once to the jarl’.

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. Finnur Jónsson. 1926-8. Ordbog til de af samfund til udg. af gml. nord. litteratur udgivne Rímur samt til de af Dr. O. Jiriczek udgivne Bósarímur. SUGNL 51. Copenhagen: Jørgensen.
8. ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
9. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
10. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
11. Heslop, Kate. 2006b. ‘Grettisfærsla: The Handing on of Grettir’. SBVS 30, 65-94.
12. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
13. Schulz, Katja. 2004. Riesen: Von Wissenshütern und Wildnisbewohnern in Edda und Saga. Skandinavistische Arbeiten 20. Heidelberg: Winter.
14. Internal references
15. 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 640-806. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=70> (accessed 26 April 2024)
16. Not published: do not cite (Run^VI)
17. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Fjarða heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 983.
18. Kate Heslop 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Grettisfærsla’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1491. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=2220> (accessed 26 April 2024)
19. Not published: do not cite ()
20. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 13 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 563.
21. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 25 (Forað, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 577.