Bǫðmóðr Lv 1^VIII (Ket 28)

Ket 28-33 (Bǫðmóðr Lv 1-3 and Keth 17-19 in alternation) is a dialogue comprising six stanzas in ljóðaháttr metre between Bǫðmóðr ‘Battle-brave’ and Ketill (Ket ch. 5, FSGJ 2, 173-7). Bǫðmóðr’s father, the viking king Framarr, worships Óðinn, who has decreed that Framarr be invulnerable to iron (i.e. weapons). When Ketill’s daughter Hrafnhildr refuses Framarr’s hand in marriage, Framarr challenges Ketill to single combat near the mound called Árhaugr ‘Mound of Plenty’ on the first day of Yule. At the appointed time Ketill travels to the mound and sits on it, facing the wind. A fierce snowstorm is raging, but since Framarr and his subjects bring offerings to the mound, snow never settles on it. On the evening before the first day of Yule, Bǫðmóðr, who is a hospitable and popular man, goes out to the mound to see whether Ketill has arrived and to invite him to the Yule festivities in his house.

Hverr er sá inn hávi,         er á haugi sitr
        ok horfir veðri viðr?
Frostharðan mann         hygg ek þik feiknum vera;
        hvat þér hvergi* hlýr.

Hverr er sá inn hávi, er sitr á haugi ok horfir viðr veðri? Ek hygg þik vera feiknum frostharðan mann; hvergi* hvat hlýr þér.

Who is the tall one who sits on the mound and faces into the wind? I think you are a terribly frost-hard man; nowhere does anything shelter you.

Mss: 343a(57r-v), 471(55r) (Ket)

Readings: [2] haugi: haug 471    [5] hygg: added above the line 343a    [6] hvergi*: hvergis 343a, hvorgis 471

Editions: Skj AII, 284-5, Skj BII, 306, Skald II, 162, NN §2391; FSN 2, 134, FSGJ 2, 175, Anderson 1990, 56-7, 104, 441; Edd. Min. 82.

Context: This stanza is introduced by the words: Böðmóðr kvað vísu ‘Bǫðmóðr spoke a stanza’.

Notes: [All]: The description of Ketill is reminiscent of Hávm 50, where the situation of a friendless man is compared to that of a lone tree in a village (þorp), unsheltered by bark or needles. Bǫðmóðr’s question to Ketill asking about his identity resembles the questions Ketill addresses to his opponents Gusi (Ket 3a), the anonymous troll (Ket 13) and Forað (Ket 16). Ketill’s great size is mentioned at the beginning of ch. 1 of the saga (FSGJ 2, 151). — [All]: There is a change of scribal hands in ms. 471, shortly before the beginning of this stanza. Anderson (1990, 103 n. 273) identifies the new, much later hand as that of Magnús Magnússon, a C17th scholar and antiquarian (Anderson 1990, 70-3). — [5] feiknum ‘terribly’: The dat. pl. of the adj. feikn ‘baleful’ is used adverbially here modifying the adj. frostharðr ‘frost-hard’ to indicate degree (LP: 2. feikn; cf. the translation in Skj B). — [6] hvergi* hvat hlýr þér ‘nowhere does anything shelter you’: This line is emended to er þér hvatki hlýr ‘where nothing shelters you’ by Finnur Jónsson (Skj B; cf. NN §2391). The gen. form hvergis ‘of what-/whomsoever’ (see ANG §477.2) is emended by all other eds with the exception of Anderson to hvergi ‘nowhere’.

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.
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. Anderson, Sarah M. 1990. ‘The Textual Transmission of Two Fornaldarsögur: Ketils saga høings and Gríms saga loðinkinna’. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University…
11. Internal references
12. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ketils saga hœngs’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 548. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=71> (accessed 3 May 2024)
13. Not published: do not cite ()
14. 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.
15. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 16 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 11)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 566.
16. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 28 (Bǫðmóðr Framarsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 580.
17. Beatrice La Farge (ed.) 2017, ‘Ketils saga hœngs 3 (Ketill hœngr, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 553.