Anon (Vǫlsa) 1^I

Karl hefir búit         ok kona ǫldruð
á andnesi         einhverju.
Átti son         við seima Bil
drengr ok dóttur         drjúgskýrliga.

Karl ok ǫldruð kona hefir búit á einhverju andnesi. Drengr átti son ok drjúgskýrliga dóttur við {Bil seima}.

An old man and an aged woman used to live on a certain headland. The capable man had a son and a very sensible daughter with {the Bil <goddess> of gold} [WOMAN].

Mss: Flat(121vb) (Flat)

Readings: [3] á andnesi: ‘a nnd nesi’ Flat

Editions: Skj AII, 219, Skj BII, 237, Skald II, 123; Flat 1860-8, II, 331 (Vǫlsa); Guðbrandur Vigfússon 1860, 133, CPB II, 381, Edd. Min. 123, Schröder 1933, 78.

Context: The prose text sets the story in the time before the expulsion of King Óláfr from Norway by King Knútr (late 1020s), and connects it with the Christianizing efforts of Óláfr. The king is informed about heathen practices being performed on a remote farm in northern Norway. The family at the farm, a farmer, a housewife and their son and daughter, are introduced and st. 1 cited with at þui sem j upphafi kuædissins segir ok suo hefr ‘as it says in the beginning of the poem, starting thus’. The prose resumes with the remainder of the household: a male and a female servant, and a dog called Lærir.

Notes: [All]: The stanza is missing in 292ˣ, and it was probably inserted into Flat as an introductory stanza deduced from the prose text. — [1-2]: A sg. verb, here hefir (búit) ‘used (to live)’, is common with a coordinate subject in poetry (NS §70).  — [1] karl ‘an old man’: All other household members likewise remain nameless: kona ‘woman’, sonr ‘son’ and dóttir ‘daughter’ in this stanza, ambátt ‘female servant, maid’ in st. 2/5, and þræll ‘male servant’ in st. 7/7. Only the household bitch has a (suggestive) proper name, Lærir; on its probable meaning see Note to st. 13/9. — [3] á andnesi ‘on a headland’: The ms. only has one <a> which is clearly separated from the following ‘nnd nesi’. Therefore, it is not the prep. that needs to be restored by emendation but the initial <a> of the next word. — [8] drjúgskýrliga ‘very sensible’: A hap. leg., though drjúg- occurs as an intensifier; see, e.g., LP: drjúghljóðr ‘very/persistently silent’, drjúgspakr ‘very wise’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
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. Flat 1860-8 = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and C. R. Unger, eds. 1860-8. Flateyjarbók. En samling af norske konge-sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler. 3 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Malling.
6. NS = Nygaard, Marius. 1906. Norrøn syntax. Kristiania (Oslo): Aschehoug. Rpt. 1966.
7. Edd. Min. = Heusler, Andreas and Wilhelm Ranisch, eds. 1903. Eddica Minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
8. Schröder, Franz Rolf. 1933. Quellenbuch zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte. Trübners philologische Bibliothek 14. Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.
9. Internal references
10. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Vǫlsa þáttr’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=28> (accessed 27 April 2024)
11. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Flateyjarbók’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=44> (accessed 27 April 2024)