ǪrvOdd Ævdr 30^VIII (Ǫrv 100)

Várum allir         vestr með Skolla;
þar at landi sat         lýða dróttinn.
Báru bragnar         blóðgar undir,
sverðum skornar,         en vér sigr höfðum.

Várum allir vestr með Skolla; þar sat {dróttinn lýða} at landi. Bragnar báru blóðgar undir, skornar sverðum, en vér höfðum sigr.

We were all in the west with Skolli; there {the lord of men} [RULER = Játmundr] ruled over the land. Warriors bore bloody wounds, cut with swords, but we had the victory.

Mss: 343a(80v), 471(95r), 173ˣ(62va) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [6] undir: randir 471    [7] skornar: skornir 343a, meiddir 471, 173ˣ    [8] höfðum: þaðan 471, 173ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 311, Skj BII, 330, Skald II, 176-7; Ǫrv 1888, 202, FSGJ 2, 349.

Notes: [All]: The substance of this stanza corresponds to the second helmingr of Ǫrv 44 and an episode in the prose saga in which Oddr and Hjálmarr encounter a viking named Skolli during an expedition to England (Ǫrv 1888, 84-7). In the saga this episode occurs after an adventure in Ireland, in which Ásmundr is killed, and after Oddr’s meeting with the Irish woman Ǫlvǫr, who makes Oddr a protective magic shirt (see Ǫrv 4 and 111). — [2] vestr með Skolla ‘in the west with Skolli’: Exactly the same line is at Ǫrv 44/6. According to the prose saga Oddr and Hjálmarr encounter Skolli off the coast of Northumberland, where he had sixty ships. Although Oddr at first intends to fight Skolli, he ends up making common cause with him in the latter’s bid to restore his rule of a kingdom which another English king had stolen from him. On the name Skolli see Ǫrv 44, Note to l. 6. — [3-4]: These two lines probably refer to the king of the English, named as Játmundr in some mss, who has usurped Skolli’s kingdom and killed his father and many of his kinsmen. The second helmingr then refers to the battle, said to have taken place in the south of the country, in which Oddr’s and Skolli’s men fight against Játmundr, kill him, and gain the kingdom. — [6] undir ‘wounds’: The reading of 343a and 173ˣ; 471 has randir ‘shields’, which Skj B and Skald adopt, while Ǫrv 1888 has undir. Both readings are possible. — [7] skornar ‘cut’: Again the mss show variation, with 471 and 173ˣ reading meiddir ‘wounded’, which must refer back to bragnar ‘warriors’ (l. 5), whereas skornar (emended from 343a’s skornir) qualifies the f. pl. undir ‘wounds’. — [8] vér höfðum ‘we had’: Both 471 and 173ˣ read þaðan ‘from there’, so that the clause is without a verb. This reading is possible if the verb ‘had’ or ‘won’ is implied. The following stanza begins with höfðu ‘they had’, and it is possible the conjunction of two forms of the same verb in an exemplar of 471 and 173ˣ interfered with the transmission of the final word in Ǫrv 100.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
5. Ǫrv 1888 = Boer, R. C., ed. 1888. Ǫrvar-Odds saga. Leiden: Brill.
6. Internal references
7. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 100 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 30)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 911.
8. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 4 (Ǫlvǫr, Lausavísa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 813.
9. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 44 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Lausavísur 11)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 857.