Anon Law 1^VII

Lögmaðr skyldi röskr og riettr,
riettligr er það lögmanns stiettr;
sá mun þykkja lýðnum liettr,
er lögin segir, þá er hann er friettr.
Móyses kunni lögmáls list,
leingi talaði hann við Krist;
trautt fær mannfólk laganna mist;
minn guð fái oss himna vist.

Lögmaðr skyldi röskr og riettr, það er lögmanns riettligr stiettr; sá mun þykkja liettr lýðnum, er segir lögin, þá er hann er friettr. Móyses kunni list lögmáls, hann talaði leingi við Krist; trautt fær mannfólk mist laganna; minn guð fái oss vist himna.

The lawman should be brave and true, that is the lawman’s proper way; he will appear gracious to the people, who speaks the law, when he is asked. Moses was skilled in the art of law-giving, he spoke for a long time with Christ; unwillingly does mankind lose the laws; may my God give us an abode in the heavens.

Mss: 3260(58rb) (Bl)

Editions: Skj AII, 463, Skj BII, 496, Skald II, 271, NN §1632; NGL IV, 400.

Context: The poem is inserted as a coda at the end of the Bæjarlǫg of Bergen.

Notes: [All]: The st. is composed in the hneptr ‘cropped’ form of hrynhent, in which the conventional octosyllabic l. is shortened by one syllable. The stressed monosyllabic cadences in the four ll. of each helmingr are connected by end-rhyme, in the pattern defined by Snorri Sturluson as minni runhent ‘lesser rhyming metre’ (cf. SnSt Ht 90-1^III; SnE 1999, 36). — [3] sá mun þykkja liettr lýðnum ‘he will appear gracious to the people’: I.e. ‘people will consider him gracious’. — [4]: The initial rel. particle er ‘who’ is extrametrical. — [7] laganna ‘of the laws’: Finnur Jónsson interprets this as a specific reference to the Ten Commandments (Skj B), but the implication of the helmingr seems to be that the Law of Moses – which included a wide range of divine ordinances detailed in Exod. – is the model for the laws of all Christian peoples.

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. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. NGL = Keyser, R. et al., eds. 1846-95. Norges gamle love indtil 1387. 5 vols. Christiania (Oslo): Gröndahl.
6. SnE 1999 = Snorri Sturluson. 1999. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. Rpt. with addenda and corrigenda. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Internal references
9. Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 90’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1200.