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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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BjRagn Lv 2VIII (Ragn 20)

Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 20 (Bjǫrn Ragnarsson, Lausavísur 2)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 665.

Bjǫrn RagnarssonLausavísur
123

Duga mun hugr ok hjarta
í hugsnöru brjósti,
þó at miðr um þat mæli,
manni innan rifja.
Eigi er oss í augum
ormr né fránir snákar;
bræðr gæddu mik mínir;
man ek stjúpsonu þína.

Hugr mun duga manni ok hjarta innan rifja í hugsnöru brjósti, þó at mæli miðr um þat. Ormr er oss eigi í augum né fránir snákar; bræðr mínir gæddu mik; ek man stjúpsonu þína.

Courage will serve a man well, as will a heart within the ribs in a courage-swift breast, even though he may speak rather little about it. There is no snake in our eyes, nor glittering serpents; my brothers enriched me; I remember your stepsons.

Mss: 1824b(66r), 147(104v) (Ragn); Hb(105v-106r) (RagnSon)

Readings: [1] mun: man Hb;    hjarta: so 147, Hb, ‘hjata’ 1824b    [2] hugsnöru (‘hugh snaurv’): so with ‘hvgh’ corrected from ‘havgh’ 1824b, ‘hug (snauru)’(?) 147, hauksnöru Hb    [3] miðr: minnr Hb    [4] rifja: ‘rifi(a)’ 147    [5] Eigi er oss í augum: ‘[…]ss i […]ugum’ 147    [6] fránir: ‘(fr)[…](nir)’(?) 147;    snákar: ‘(s)[…](kar)’(?) 147    [7] bræðr: ‘br[…]dur’ 147;    gæddu: ‘gędd’ 1824b, ‘[…]dd[…]’ 147, glöddu Hb    [8] ‑sonu: ‘(sonu)’(?) 147, sunu Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 236-7, Skj BII, 256, Skald II, 133; FSN 1, 267-8 (Ragn ch.9), Ragn 1891, 200 (ch. 9), Hb 1892-6, 461 (RagnSon ch. 2), Ragn 1906-8, 145, 183, 209 (ch. 10), Ragn 1944, 74-5 (ch. 10), FSGJ 1, 255 (Ragn ch. 10), Ragn 1985, 128 (ch. 10), Ragn 2003, 40 (ch. 10), CPB II, 349.

Context: Bjǫrn járnsíða implies that reticence need not indicate lack of courage and that he and his brothers other than Sigurðr, while lacking the latter’s snake-like mark in the eye, can nevertheless match his resolve. Referring to his mother’s stepsons as his brothers, he makes it clear that their memory means much to him.

Notes: [All]: Stanza 19, spoken by Sigurðr, the son born to Áslaug while her other sons were absent at Hvítabær, finally confirms his elder brothers in their resolve to undertake the revenge mission to Sweden, an idea which they, with Ívarr as their spokesman, had initially resisted (Ragn 1906-8, 143-4). Bjǫrn, the first of the three elder brothers to speak after Sigurðr, here justifies his position with a gnomic exposition of heroic doctrine in ll. 1-4, and may even be implying, with his reference to the snake-like quality of Sigurðr’s eyes in ll. 5-6, that while his own eyes and those of the other two brothers do not share that quality, he and they are no lesser heroes than Sigurðr’s namesake, their grandfather Sigurðr Fáfnisbani; on the motif of glittering eyes, see Ragn 8, Notes to [All] and ll. 5-8 (a) above. — [1]: The sg. mun ‘will’ is here doing service for two conjoined subjects, hugr ‘courage’ and hjarta ‘heart’, agreeing in number with the subject closer to it (Barnes 2008, 257-8; cf. Faarlund 2004, 201-2). — [2] hugsnöru ‘courage-swift’: In place of this adj. previous eds have without exception adopted the Hb reading hauksnöru ‘hawk-keen’ (attested in RvHbreiðm Hl 11/2III), no doubt with a view to obviating repetition of hug- from l. 1. It may be argued that the repetition is effective, however, partly in reinforcing the idea of courage, and partly in extending the scope for multiple interpretation, in allowing the meaning ‘mind, thought’ for hugr (SnE 2005, 43), as well as the meaning ‘courage’, to be present. The word occurs in later mss of ǪrvOdd Ævdr (Ǫrv 134/1-2), in the meaning ‘keen-minded’, see the second Note to [All] there. — [7] gæddu mik ‘enriched me’: I.e. ‘benefited me, were of value to me’. All previous eds apart from Rafn (FSN), who is followed here, adopt the Hb reading glöddu ‘gladdened’ in place of gæddu ‘enriched, benefited’, but this seems unnecessary: gæddu makes just as good sense, and involves minimal emendation. — [7] bræðr mínir ‘my brothers’: The reference here is to Bjǫrn’s half-brothers, Eiríkr and Agnarr, the sons of Ragnarr by Þóra and the stjúpsynir ‘stepsons’ of Áslaug referred to in the next line. In reporting the deaths of Eiríkr and Agnarr to her sons by Ragnarr in the prose of Ragn, Áslaug had earlier referred to Fall þeirra Eiriks ok Agnars, bredra ydara, enn stiupsona minna ‘The fall of Eiríkr and Agnarr, your brothers and my stepsons’ (Ragn 1906-8, 143, ll. 3-5); cf. the Notes to 16/1-4 (f) and 18/8 above.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
  3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  4. 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.
  5. FSGJ = Guðni Jónsson, ed. 1954. Fornaldar sögur norðurlanda. 4 vols. [Reykjavík]: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan.
  6. 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.
  7. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  8. Ragn 1906-8 = Olsen 1906-8, 111-222.
  9. Barnes, Michael. 2008. A New Introduction to Old Norse. Part I: Grammar. 3rd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
  10. 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].
  11. Faarlund, Jan Terje. 2004. The Syntax of Old Norse: With a Survey of the Inflectional Morphology and a Complete Bibliography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  12. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
  13. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.
  14. Ragn 2003 = Ebel, Uwe, ed. 2003. Ragnars saga loðbrókar. Texte des skandinavischen Mittelalters 4. Vol. II of Ebel 1997-2003.
  15. Internal references
  16. 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 28 March 2024)
  17. 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 28 March 2024)
  18. Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘ Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1001. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1347> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  19. Margaret Clunies Ross (forthcoming), ‘ Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=2999> (accessed 28 March 2024)
  20. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Ǫrvar-Odds saga 134 (Ǫrvar-Oddr, Ævidrápa 64)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 940.
  21. Rory McTurk (ed.) 2017, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar 38 (Anonymous Lausavísur, Lausavísur from Ragnars saga loðbrókar 8)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 699.
  22. (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 28 March 2024)
  23. (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 28 March 2024)
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