KrákÁsl Lv 7^VIII (Ragn 18)

Eigi mundi yðvar
óhefnt vera lengi,
eitt misseri eptir,
ef ér dæið fyrri,
— lítt hirði ek því leyna —
ef líf hafa knætti
Eiríkr sitt ok Agnarr
óbornir mér niðjar.

Yðvar mundi eigi vera lengi óhefnt, eitt misseri eptir, ef ér dæið fyrri, — lítt hirði ek leyna því — ef Eiríkr ok Agnarr, niðjar óbornir mér, knætti hafa líf sitt.

You would not be long unavenged, [not] one half-year afterwards, if you were to die first — I hardly care to make a secret of it — if Eiríkr and Agnarr, descendants not born to me, had their lives.

Mss: 1824b(65r-v), 147(104r) (Ragn); Hb(105v) (RagnSon)

Readings: [1] Eigi: so Hb, ei 1824b, ‘(Eigi)’(?) 147;    yðvar: ‘(yduar)’(?) so 147, yðar 1824b, Hb    [2] óhefnt vera lengi: ‘ef (þier d)[…]’(?) 147, ef ér dæið fyrri Hb    [3] misseri: ‘m(i)sser(i)’(?) 147, missari Hb    [4] ef ér dæið fyrri: ‘(ohefnt) vera bræðra’(?) 147, óhefnt vera bræðra Hb    [5] hirði ek: ‘h[…]d(i e)g’(?) 147, ráðumz Hb    [6] ef líf hafa knætti: ‘(ef lif hafa) […]’(?) 147    [7] Eiríkr sitt ok Agnarr: ‘[…] sitt (og agnar)’(?) 147    [8] mér niðjar: ‘(mi)er (nidi)ar’(?) 147

Editions: Skj AII, 236, Skj BII, 256, Skald II, 133; FSN 1, 266 (Ragn ch. 9), Ragn 1891, 199 (ch. 9), Hb 1892-6, 460-1 (RagnSon ch. 2), Ragn 1906-8, 143, 183, 208 (ch. 10), Ragn 1944, 70-1, 73 (ch. 10), FSGJ 1, 253 (Ragn ch. 10), Ragn 1985, 127 (ch. 10), Ragn 2003, 38-9 (ch. 10), CPB II, 349.

Context: Áslaug here points out to her sons that if they had died and her stepsons, Eiríkr and Agnarr, were still alive, they, their stepbrothers, would have been quick to avenge them.

Notes: [1-4]: It will be clear from the Readings above that the 1824b text of this stanza differs from those of 147 and Hb in the first half-stanza in that ll. 2 and 4 of 1824b appear in Hb and 147 in reverse order, and Hb and 147 have the reading bræðra in place of 1824b’s lengi (l. 2). The meaning thus emerging from ll. 1, 4 in Hb and 147 (cf. ll. 1-2 in 1824b) would be: ‘You brothers would not be unavenged …’, with bræðra used appositively with the gen. 2nd pers. pl. pron. yðvar as a gen. object of óhefnt ‘unavenged’. In 1824b, which is followed in the present edn, it is yðvar alone that is the gen. object of óhefnt. Among previous eds of the half-stanza, Rafn (FSN) and Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) follow 1824b. Finnur Jónsson (Hb 1892-6) naturally follows the Hb text; less naturally, perhaps, so do Vigfusson and Powell (CPB) and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985). All other eds, as well as Finnur Jónsson in Skj B, follow the line ordering of 1824b but read bræðra in place of lengi in l. 2, thus giving the same meaning as that emerging from Hb and 147: ‘You brothers would not be unavenged …’. A justification for choosing bræðra over lengi might be that lengi ‘long’ could be thought of as contradicting eitt misseri eptir ‘one half-year afterwards’ in l. 3. This difficulty is avoided, however, if the two phrases are considered to be in apposition, with eigi ‘not’ (l. 1) applying to both. — [1]: The relatively archaic forms eigi (147, Hb) and yðvar (147) are clearly preferable metrically to the ei and yðar of 1824b. — [5] lítt hirði ek ‘I hardly care’: The Hb reading lítt ráðumz ‘I [would] hardly undertake …’, which gives perfectly good sense in the context, is adopted in CPB (lítt rꜵ́ðumk) and by Finnur Jónsson in his edn of Hb (Hb 1892-6), but not by him in Skj B or by any other ed. — [8] niðjar óbornir mér ‘descendants not born to me’: Note that Áslaug is happy to regard her stepsons Eiríkr and Agnarr as ‘descendants’, even though they are not her biological sons. Cf. the Notes to 16/1-4 (f) and 20/7.

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. 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.
6. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
7. 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.
8. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
9. 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].
10. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
11. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
12. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
13. Internal references
14. 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 4 May 2024)
15. 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 4 May 2024)