Sigv Austv 21I/7 — á ‘in’
Fast skalt, ríkr, við ríkan
Rǫgnvald, konungr, halda
— hann es þýðr at þinni
þǫrf nôtt ok dag — sôttum.
Þann veitk, þinga kennir,
þik baztan vin miklu
á austrvega eiga
allt með grœnu salti.
Skalt, ríkr konungr, halda fast sôttum við ríkan Rǫgnvald; hann es þýðr at þǫrf þinni nôtt ok dag. Þann veitk þik eiga, kennir þinga, miklu baztan vin á austrvega allt með grœnu salti.
You must, powerful king, hold fast this covenant with the powerful Rǫgnvaldr; he is well-disposed to your needs night and day. In him I know you, master of assemblies [RULER], to have by far the best friend in the east all along the green brine.
readings
notes
[7, 8] á austrvega allt með grœnu salti ‘in the east all along the green brine’: On the seeming word-play here in reference to the Baltic, and on the difficulty of locating Rǫgnvaldr’s domain, see the Introduction. Sahlgren (1927-8, I, 174-5) objects to the acc. after á, and he would read -vegum with the greater number of mss; but the better mss have -vega, and Finnur Jónsson (1932, 16) responds that a dat. form is unnecessary. He also argues that the reference is to ‘Sweden’ in the modern sense.