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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ÞjóðA Magn 7II/3 — víga ‘of battles’

Menn eigu þess minnask
manna Sveins at kanna,
víga Freyr, sízt vôru,
vef-Gefn, þríar stefnur.
Vôn es fagrs á Fjóni
fljóðs; dugir vôpn at rjóða;
verum með fylkðu folki
framm í vápna glammi.

Menn eigu minnask þess, Freyr víga, at kanna vef-Gefn manna Sveins, sízt vôru þríar stefnur. Vôn es fagrs fljóðs á Fjóni; dugir at rjóða vôpn; verum með fylkðu folki framm í glammi vápna.

Men have to remember, Freyr <god> of battles [WARRIOR], to get to know the weaving-Gefn <= Freyja> [WOMAN] of Sveinn’s men, since there were three encounters. There’s prospect of a lovely woman on Fyn; it’s good to redden weapons; let’s take our place with the ranked troop, forward in the tumult of weapons [BATTLE].

notes

[3] Freyr víga ‘Freyr <god> of battles [WARRIOR]’: The pairing of a warrior- or man-kenning with an alliterating woman-kenning vef-Gefn ‘weaving-Gefn’ (l. 4), and their references to the sibling deities Freyr and Freyja, may be deliberate. As an apostrophe to an unidentified man, Freyr víga is unique in this set of Þjóðólfr sts, and is part of the evidence that they do not belong with Þjóðólfr’s Magnfl (see Introduction). The H-Hr reading Freys is favoured by some eds. (a) Finnur Jónsson takes it with menn (l. 1), hence menn Freys víga ‘the warrior’s men’, i.e. Magnús’s men (Hkr 1893-1901 and Skj B), but the syntax is severely dislocated on that reading and the rhyme of Freyr : vr- (or víg- : vg-) is lacking. (b) Kock adopts vgu, the H-Hr variant on vru in l. 3, and takes it with þríar stefnur (l. 4) to read víga Freys sízt vgu þríar stefnur ‘since they fought three warrior’s encounters’ (Skald; NN §867). (c) It could alternatively be taken in apposition to Sveins (l. 2), but this seems unlikely when Sveinn (Úlfsson) is not the focus of the st.

kennings

grammar

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