EirRagn Lv 1^VIII (Ragn 11)

These four stanzas, all spoken by Eiríkr Ragnarsson and presented in Skj and Skald as forming part of a twelve-stanza unit together with Ragn 15-22, have a unity of their own with their character of a so-called death-song or ævikviða, being comparable in sentiment and wording, if not in metre, to the stanzas spoken at the point of death by Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri ‘the Great-minded’ in Heiðr and Ǫrv (Ǫrv 15-29), by Hildibrandr in Ásm 1-6 and by Ǫrvar-Oddr in Ǫrv 71-141. They are also comparable in these respects (and relatively close in metre) to Krm, the death-song attributed to Ragnarr loðbrók (see McTurk 2012b, 376-80). Of these four stanzas, all preserved in 1824b, none is traceable in what can now be read of 147, and two, Ragn 11 and 13, are preserved in Hb. For a discussion of the interrelationship of their two preserved versions, differing somewhat from the present edn in its treatment of individual words, see McTurk (1991a, 118-19, 136-9). Cf. further the Context to Ragn 11, below.

Vil ek eigi boð fyrir bróður
né baugum mey kaupa
— Eystein kveða orðinn
Agnars bana — heyra.
Grætr eigi mik móðir;
mun ek eptir öl drekka;
ok geirtré í gegnum
gör látið mik standa!

Ek vil eigi heyra boð fyrir bróður né kaupa mey baugum; kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars. Móðir grætr mik eigi; ek mun öl drekka eptir; ok látið gör geirtré standa í gegnum mik.

I do not wish to hear of an offer for my brother, nor to purchase a maiden with rings; they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer. My mother does not weep for me; I’ll be drinking ale afterwards; and let spear-shafts, [duly] prepared, run through me.

Mss: 1824b(64r) (Ragn); Hb(105v) (RagnSon)

Readings: [5] Grætr: so Hb, grét 1824b    [6] mun ek (‘mon ek’): so Hb, menn ok 1824b;    eptir öl drekka: øfstr á val deyja Hb    [7] gegnum: ‘gegnv’ Hb    [8] gör (‘giorr’): so Hb, gera 1824b

Editions: Skj AII, 234, Skj BII, 254, Skald II, 132, NN §1453; FSN 1, 261 (Ragn ch. 9), Ragn 1891, 195-6 (ch. 9), Hb 1892-6, 460 (RagnSon ch. 2), Ragn 1906-8, 139, 203 (ch. 10), Ragn 1944, 62-3 (ch. 10), FSGJ 1, 249 (Ragn ch. 10), Ragn 1985, 123 (ch. 10), Ragn 2003, 34 (ch. 10), CPB II, 348.

Context: There is a difference in context here between Ragn (preserved in 1824b) and RagnSon (preserved in Hb). In Ragn, after Ragnarr has abandoned his idea of a Swedish marriage, his two sons by Þóra, Eiríkr and Agnarr, invade Sweden, for no very clear reason. They are defeated by King Eysteinn in a battle in which Agnarr falls. Eiríkr is offered both his life and Eysteinn’s daughter in marriage, but prefers to die by impalement on spears, as he indicates here. In RagnSon, on the other hand, the brothers’ motivation is clear: they wish to make Eysteinn tributary to themselves rather than to their father Ragnarr, and with this in mind Eiríkr sues for the hand of Eysteinn’s daughter, but because Eysteinn rejects his suit the brothers invade his kingdom. They are defeated in a battle in which Agnarr falls, as in Ragn, and Eysteinn then offers Eiríkr his daughter in marriage.

Notes: [1-2]: In the prose immediately preceding this stanza in RagnSon (Hb 1892-6, 459-60) and Ragn (1824b, Ragn 1906-8, 139), Eiríkr is offered Eysteinn’s daughter in marriage, but only in RagnSon is he offered compensation for his brother Agnarr’s death as well (cf. l. 1). — [1]: This line is unmetrical, but could be made metrical by converting vil ek eigi ‘I do not wish’ to vilkat, with the same meaning. — [3-4] kveða Eystein orðinn bana Agnars ‘they say that Eysteinn has become Agnarr’s slayer’: An acc. and inf. construction; cf. Ragn 13/6, below. — [5] grætr mik eigi ‘does not weep for me’: Eiríkr’s mother is Þóra, who is no longer alive (see the Context for Ragn 1, above); the meaning here seems to be ‘there is no mother to weep for me’. The pres. tense reading grætr of Hb thus seems more appropriate than 1824b’s pret. reading grét ‘did (not) weep’, which Rafn (FSN) retains, in contrast to all other eds, who follow Hb here. — [6-8]: Apart from Rafn (FSN), who in l. 6 adopts from 1824b the apparently meaningless reading menn ok eptir öl drekka, all eds follow Hb here, reading l. 6 as mun ek efstr of val deyja ‘I will die uppermost (i.e. ‘last’, as CPB has it) on the heap of the slain’. These eds apart from Kock and Örnólfur Thorsson (see below) also take the first word of l. 8, gör ‘prepared’, as gerr, gǫrr m. nom. sg. ‘prepared, ready’ and as referring predicatively to ek, the speaker of the stanza, thus giving the meaning ‘I, ready (as I am to do so), will die’, etc. (Rafn, FSN, and Ragn 1906-8, 139, read this word in 1824b as geir and geirr (acc. and nom. sg. of geirr m. ‘spear’?) respectively, giving little sense in the context; Skj A’s 1824b reading ‘gera’, yielding even less sense, is correct, however.) In l. 6 the present edn adopts from Hb only the words mun ek, understanding eptir ‘afterwards’ as adverbial here and the line as referring to the drinking of ale after death in Valhǫll (cf. Grí 36/9). In l. 8 the present edn follows Kock, Skald (gǫr), and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985) (gjör), in taking the adj. gör as n. acc. pl. and referring attributively to geirtré ‘prepared spears, spears prepared (for the purpose)’, in the previous line. This, as Kock (NN §1453) argues, seems a more natural explanation of the syntax of the passage than that which would seek to link the adj. to the 1st pers. pron. ek of l. 6.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj A = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15a. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. A: Tekst efter håndskrifterne. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1967. 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. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
7. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
8. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
9. McTurk, Rory. 1991a. Studies in Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Medium Ævum Monographs new ser. 15. Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediæval Languages and Literature.
10. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
11. Ragn 1944 = Eskeland, Severin, ed. and trans. 1944. Soga om Ragnar Lodbrok med Kråka-kvædet. Norrøne bokverk 16. 2nd ed. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget. [1st ed. 1914].
12. McTurk, Rory. 2012b. ‘Badhbhscéal: Krákumál’. In Almqvist et al. 2012, 371-82.
13. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
14. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
15. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
16. Internal references
17. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 367. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=23> (accessed 26 April 2024)
18. 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 26 April 2024)
19. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars saga loðbrókar’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 616. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=81> (accessed 26 April 2024)
20. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ragnars sona þáttr’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=85> (accessed 26 April 2024)
21. Not published: do not cite (Hjálm^VIII)
22. Not published: do not cite (Rloð^VIII)
23. Rory McTurk 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Krákumál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 706. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1020> (accessed 26 April 2024)
24. Not published: do not cite ()
25. Peter Jorgensen (ed.) 2017, ‘Ásmundar saga kappabana 1 (Hildibrandr, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 16.
26. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 15 (Hjálmarr inn hugumstóri, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 828.
27. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 71 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 888.
28. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 1 (Ragnarr loðbrók, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 626.
29. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 11 (Eiríkr Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 648.
30. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 13 (Eiríkr Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 651.
31. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 15 (Kráka/Áslaug Sigurðardóttir, Lausavísur 5)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 655.
32. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10292> (accessed 26 April 2024)
33. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Hauksbók’ in Guðrún Nordal (ed.), Poetry on Icelandic History. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 4. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10935> (accessed 26 April 2024)