Sigv Austv 3I/3 — veit ‘know that’
Vasa fý*st, es rannk rastir
reiðr of skóg frá Eiðum
— menn of veit, at mœttum
meini — tolf ok eina.
Hykka fót án flekkum
— fell sár á il hvára —
— hvast gengum þó þingat
þann dag — konungsmǫnnum.
Vasa fý*st, es rannk reiðr tolf rastir ok eina of skóg frá Eiðum; menn of veit, at mœttum meini. Hykka fót konungsmǫnnum án flekkum; sár fell á hvára il; þó gengum hvast þingat þann dag.
It was not [my] desire when I ran, angry, twelve leagues and one through the forest from Eiðar; people know that we met with harm. I think not a foot of the king’s men was without sores; a wound landed on each sole; still, we travelled keenly there that day.
readings
[3] veit: veita 325VI, 75a, 73aˣ, ‘væí(ti)’(?) 325VII
notes
[3] menn of veit ‘people know’: The expression, lit. ‘people knows’, with numerical disagreement of subject and verb and a sense such as ‘to be sure’, is idiomatic: see CVC: maðr B. 2. The expression is considered a late intrusion in the text by Noreen (1923, 36, citing Konráð Gíslason 1892, 177). But the decidedly unheroic context suggests the possibility that Sigvatr was here reaching for a comic effect. He seems, somewhat comparably, not to have been averse to using innovative anglicisms: see the Notes to sts 16/2, 16/8 and 19/3.