ǪrvOdd Ævdr 61^VIII (Ǫrv 131)

Þann drap Ögmundr         Eyþjófsbani
í Hellulands         hraunsóbygðum.
Félaga hans níu         fjörvi næmðak;
hefik ei víking         verra fundit.

Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani drap þann í hraunsóbygðum Hellulands. Næmðak níu félaga hans fjörvi; hefik ei fundit verra víking.

Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani (‘Eyþjófr’s killer’) slew him in the uninhabited rocky wilderness of Helluland. I took the lives of his nine companions; I have not found a worse murderer.

Mss: 343a(81r), 471(95v), 173ˣ(64va) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [5] Félaga hans níu: en ek félaga hans 471, félagi hans 173ˣ    [6] fjörvi: með fjörvi 173ˣ;    næmðak: næmða 471, 173ˣ    [7] ei: eigi 471

Editions: Skj AII, 317, Skj BII, 336, Skald II, 180; Ǫrv 1888, 206, FSGJ 2, 359.

Notes: [All]: There are a number of references to Oddr’s encounters with his greatest enemy, Ǫgmundr Eyþjófr’s killer, in the stanzas associated with the various versions of Ǫrv. They include Ǫgmundr Lv 1-3 (Ǫrv 31-3), three stanzas only in the younger mss; ǪrvOdd Lv 16-17 (Ǫrv 49-50), within Oddr’s mannjafnaðr; and ǪrvOdd Ævdr 44 (Ǫrv 114). While the younger mss expand and deepen Ǫgmundr’s role as a villain with demonic overtones in the saga (Arnold 2010), the extant stanzas, not all of which are in the younger mss alone, demonstrate that the Ǫgmundr narrative was potentially available for further development in the older mss. — [1] þann ‘him’: Lit. ‘that one’, i.e. Oddr’s son Vignir, mentioned but not named in the previous stanza. After guiding his father northwards to the Greenland Sea to find Ǫgmundr, Vignir, still only a boy of ten, but already with prodigious strength, is killed by Ǫgmundr who savagely bites through his windpipe (Ǫrv 1888, 133). This is the act of a troll (Ármann Jakobsson 2011, 42); cf. Egill Lv 35/7-8^V (Eg 64), where the same act is attributed to Egill Skallagrímsson. — [3] Hellulands ‘of Helluland’: Helluland ‘Slabland’, named for the many flat rocks found there, is mentioned in Eir as part of the fabulous geography of Arctic North America, and has doubtless been taken over by the composers of the younger versions of Ǫrv from this or similar Vinland sources; on occurrences of the name Helluland, see ONP: hella. — [5] níu félaga hans ‘his nine companions’: That is, Ǫgmundr’s companions. In Ǫrv 50/6, it is mentioned that nine of Ǫgmundr’s men are left alive after his first encounter with Oddr. — [7] víking ‘murderer’: The noun víkingr often has pejorative force in post-Viking Age Icelandic texts and may gloss a range of terms from ‘thief, robber’ to ‘murderer’ (cf. ONP: víkingr); the last of these is chosen here to characterise Ǫgmundr.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
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. Ármann Jakobsson. 2011. ‘Beast and Man: Realism and the Occult in Egils saga’. SS 83, 29-44.
7. Arnold, Martin and Alison Finlay, eds. 2010. Making History: Essays on the fornaldarsögur. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. Internal references
9. Margaret Clunies Ross 2022, ‘ Anonymous, Eiríks saga rauða’ 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. 395-399. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=18> (accessed 24 April 2024)
10. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ǫrvar-Odds saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 804. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=35> (accessed 24 April 2024)
11. Not published: do not cite (Egill^V)
12. Not published: do not cite (Run^VI)
13. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2022, ‘Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 64 (Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 35)’ 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. 279.
14. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 114 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 44)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 922.
15. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 31 (Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 844.
16. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 49 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Lausavísur 16)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 862.
17. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 50 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Lausavísur 17)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 864.