Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri, Lausavísur 1

Margaret Clunies Ross

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Hjálm Lv 1^VIII (Ǫrv 5)

Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 5 (Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 816.

Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri Lausavísur

1 2

Ǫrv 5-12 is a series of eight lausavísur in fornyrðislag constituting (according to both Ǫrv and Heiðr) a dialogue between the heroes Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri ‘the Great-minded’ and Ǫrvar-Oddr immediately before they fight a battle on the Danish island of Sámsey (Samsø) with twelve berserks, all of whom are brothers. One stanza in Ǫrv (not Heiðr) is attributed to the oldest of the brothers, the hero Angantýr. An account of this battle is also given in Heiðr, accompanied in two of the main mss (2845 and R715ˣ) by versions of some of the same stanzas as are present in Ǫrv, though Ǫrv contains stanzas not in any other source. As mentioned in the general Introduction to the stanzas from Ǫrv, Saxo preserves a version of the story of this battle. In all three versions there is a general similarity between the names of the protagonists, and the outcome of the battle is the same, the deaths of all twelve brothers at the hands of Oddr alone (Saxo) or Oddr and Hjálmarr (Heiðr, Ǫrv). In all versions, too, Hjálmarr dies in the battle after having fought a single combat with Angantýr, who also dies. A difference between them, however, concerns the motivation of the fight. In both Saxo and Ǫrv the encounter happens by chance; the berserks come upon Hjálmarr’s and Oddr’s ships by the shore, kill the men on board, but not the two heroes, who have gone inland to cut wood to repair part of their damaged ship. In Heiðr, on the other hand, the conflict is fuelled by rivalry between either Angantýr or (probably originally) Hjǫrvarðr, the second of the berserk brothers, and Hjálmarr for the hand of Ingibjǫrg, daughter of the king of Sweden. RvHbreiðm Hl 49-50^III celebrates Hjálmarr as a hero eager for battle who killed fǫrsnjǫll kyn fira ‘attack-clever kin of men’ (49/7-8), a probable allusion to the twelve berserk brothers.

There is great variability in the order and content of these stanzas, both between the mss of Heiðr and Ǫrv and among the mss of Ǫrv alone. This is likely to reflect a considerable diversity within the oral traditions that presumably underlay the various saga compilations. Even though he omitted the stanzas altogether in his edition of Heiðr stanzas in Skj, Finnur Jónsson, followed by Kock, implicitly treated the Heiðr stanzas (at least in the version of 2845) as having superior status to the versions of Ǫrv mss where the stanzas are present in both sagas, because, wherever a stanza occurs in Heiðr as well as in Ǫrv, Skj and Skald follow the text and ordering of Heiðr, not Ǫrv. As Andrews (1920, 30) pointed out, Finnur seriously underrated the versions of the stanzas in R715ˣ to the point of omitting them entirely. Neither he nor Kock used any readings from this ms., even though it sometimes has better readings than those of 2845, and can be seen to preserve versions of the text that are sometimes closer to the Ǫrv mss than to 2845. Edd. Min. and Ǫrv 1888 likewise omit mention of R715ˣ.

The disposition of the stanzas Ǫrv 5-12 and their continuation 13-29 (Hjálmarr’s death-song) across the mss of both Ǫrv and Heiðr can be seen in Table 1. To summarise the ms. disposition of Ǫrv 5-12, none of them are present in 7; 344a has all eight stanzas and has been used as the base ms. for this group of stanzas except for Ǫrv 8 and Ǫrv 10. Stanzas 5-8 and 11-12 are also in 343a and 471, but these mss do not have sts 9-10, while 173ˣ lacks sts 9-12. Ǫrv 8-10 and 12 are also in the Heiðr mss 2845 and R715ˣ and readings from these mss are included. The third main ms. of Heiðr, Hauksbók (Hb), AM 544 4°, does not include any of the stanzas. Instead, it summarises the Samsø episode, referring to Ǫrv. For Ǫrv 8, 9 and 10, the version of 2845 has been taken as the base ms. because it gives a more coherent text.

TABLE 1
Disposition of stanzas concerning the fight on Samsø and Hjálmarr’s death-song across the manuscripts of Heiðr and Ǫrv

SkP sigla

2845

R715ˣ

344a

343a

471

173ˣ

Ǫrv 5

✗

✓

Ǫrv 6

✗

✓

Ǫrv 7

✗

✓

Ǫrv 8

✓

Ǫrv 9

✓

✗

Ǫrv 10

✓

✗

Ǫrv 11

✗

✓

✗

Ǫrv 12

✓

✗

Ǫrv 13

✓

Ǫrv 14

✓

Ǫrv 15

✓

Ǫrv 16

✓

Ǫrv 17

✓

Ǫrv 18

✓

Ǫrv 19

✓

Ǫrv 20

✓

✗

✓

Ǫrv 21

✗

✓

Ǫrv 22

✗

✓

Ǫrv 23

✗

✓

Ǫrv 24

✗

✓

Ǫrv 25

✗

✓

Ǫrv 26

✗

✓

Ǫrv 27

✗

✓

Ǫrv 28

✗

✓

Ǫrv 29

✗

✓

Hervarðr, Hjörvarðr,         Hrani, Angantýr,
Bildr ok Bófi,         Barri ok Tóki,
Tindr ok Tyrfingr,         tveir Haddingjar:
þeir í Bólm austr         bornir váru,
Arngríms synir         ok Eyfuru.

Hervarðr, Hjörvarðr, Hrani, Angantýr, Bildr ok Bófi, Barri ok Tóki, Tindr ok Tyrfingr, tveir Haddingjar: þeir váru bornir austr í Bólm, synir Arngríms ok Eyfuru.

Hervarðr, Hjǫrvarðr, Hrani, Angantýr, Bildr and Bófi, Barri and Tóki, Tindr and Tyrfingr, the two Haddingjar: they were born in the east in Bólm, sons of Arngrímr and Eyfura.

Mss: 344a(16v), 343a(67v), 471(74r), 173ˣ(35r) (Ǫrv)

Readings: [1] Hervarðr Hjörvarðr: so 173ˣ, Hervaðr ok Hjörvaðr 344a, 343a, 471 [2] Hrani Angantýr: so 343a, 471, 173ˣ, Hrani ok Angantýr 344a [3] Bófi: bagi 343a, 471, Bragi 173ˣ [4] Barri: so 343a, ‘barr’ 344a, ‘berrri’ 471, Bölverkr 173ˣ; Tóki: so 343a, 471, 173ˣ, ‘taki’ or ‘tøki’ 344a [7] þeir: so 343a, 471, þeir er 344a, þeir eru 173ˣ; Bólm: Bar 173ˣ [8] bornir: ‘alder’ corrected from ‘fęddir’ in the margin 344a; váru: vestir 173ˣ [9] ‑gríms: ‑grím 343a, 471 [10] Eyfuru: ‘Eyfreyiu’ 173ˣ

Editions: Skj AII, 290, Skj BII, 311, Skald II, 165, NN §3179; Ǫrv 1888, 97, Ǫrv 1892, 52, FSGJ 2, 252; Edd. Min. 105.

Context: This stanza is spoken by Hjálmarr in response to Oddr’s question of where some strange howling noises he can hear can be coming from. Hjálmarr identifies the twelve berserks as producing the weird noises and tells Oddr their names.

Notes: [All]: The stanza lists the names of the twelve berserks and the last two lines give the names of their parents and their birthplace. The prose of Heiðr in 2845, probably reflecting a version of this stanza, gives the names of six of them, Angantýr, the eldest, Hjǫrvarðr, Hervarðr, Hrani and the two Haddingjar (Heiðr 1924, 4; Heiðr 1960, 3). However, the versions of Heiðr in Hb (Hb 1892-6, 353) and R715ˣ (Heiðr 1924, 93) give twelve names: Angantýr, Hervarðr, Hjǫrvarðr, Sæmingr, Hrani, Brámi, Barri, Reifnir, Tindr, Búi and the two Haddingjar. Lines 1-2 of this stanza are exactly paralleled by Herv Lv 9 and 11(Heiðr 26 and 28). Hyndl 23-4 (NK 292) also has a version of this list as Búi ok Brámi, | Barri ok Reifnir, | Tindr ok Tyrfingr, | [ok] tveir Haddingjar … Áni, Ómi | vóro bornir, | Arngríms synir | ok Eyfuro. Saxo has the following list of twelve (Saxo 2015, I, v. 13. 4, pp. 344-5): Brander, Biarbi, Brodder, Hiarrandi, Tander, Tiruingar, duo Haddingi, Hiorthuar, Hiarthwar, Rani, Angantir. For a comparative analysis of the various lists see Kommentar III, 750-61. — [5] Tyrfingr: Here, in Hyndl 23/5 and in Fornk (ÍF 35, 61), in connection with the battle of Brávellir, Tyrfingr is a man’s name, but in Heiðr the name of the cursed sword, forged for King Svafrlami by two dwarfs, and destined to kill a man each time it was drawn. Arn Hardr 2/3-4^II tvær eggjar tyrfings ‘the two edges of the sword’ uses tyrfingr as a heiti for ‘sword’; see further Note to Þul Sverða 7/6^III. — [6] tveir Haddingjar ‘the two Haddingjar’: A pair of heroes, possibly brothers, mentioned in a number of sources (cf. Simek 1993, 127-8; ARG II, 249, 253). Eyv Hál 9/4^I (see Note there) refers to the Haddingjar in a warrior-kenning, and the names Haddingr (sg.) and Haddingjar (pl.) are mentioned several times in eddic poetry (cf. Kommentar IV, 810). Etymologically the name Haddingr denotes female head hair (cf. AEW: haddr) and may indicate that those who bore the name were identified by the wearing of long hair or other distinctive hair styles. In Book I of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum (Saxo 2015, I, i. 5. 1 ‑ 6. 9, pp. 40-51) Hadingus is the son of the Danish king Gram and a favourite of the god Óðinn. — [7] í Bólm austr ‘in the east in Bólm’: In two mss of Heiðr, Hb and R715ˣ (Heiðr 1960, 3 and n. 2; Heiðr 1924, 2, 91) Bólm is said to be the name of an island, and is located off the coast of Hålogaland in northern Norway (cf. Þul Eyja 4/5^III and Note). However, in this case a more plausible identification may be with the island of Bolmsö in Lake Bolmen in Småland, southern Sweden, because the background narrative to the encounter between Angantýr (or Hjǫrvarðr) and Hjálmarr is connected to their rivalry for the hand of the daughter of the king of Sweden. The line is metrically irregular (Type A) and it is possible that austr has been desyllabified to austur here. — [9-10] synir Arngríms ok Eyfuru ‘sons of Arngrímr and Eyfura’: These names, whose Latin equivalents in Saxo are Arngrimus and Ofura, also appear in the prose of Heiðr, in Herv Lv 10/2 and 10/6 (Heiðr 27) and Hyndl 24/3-4 for the father and mother of the twelve berserks. In Heiðr Eyfura is said to be the daughter of Sigrlami (Svafrlami in Hb and R715ˣ), king of Garðaríki (northwest Russia), given in marriage to the king’s chief viking, Arngrímr, along with the sword Tyrfingr.

References

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