Bót Lv 1II/8 — kyngjum ‘frequently’
Ferr at foglum harri
— firar neyta vel skeyta —
— vôn á heiðar hœna
hnakkadytts — und bakka.
Þar verðr almr, es olmir
undlinns stafir finnask
— land verr lofðungr brandi —
lynghœsn, dreginn kyngjum.
Harri ferr at foglum und bakka; firar neyta skeyta vel; hœna heiðar á vôn hnakkadytts. Almr verðr kyngjum dreginn þar, es olmir stafir undlinns [ok] lynghœsn finnask; lofðungr verr land brandi.
The lord has gone to hunt birds beneath the slopes; men are using shooting-weapons well; the chicken of the heath [GAME BIRD] has expectations of a neck-blow. The bow is being frequently drawn, where the frenzied poles of the wound-serpent [SWORD > WARRIORS] [and] the heather-chicken [GAME BIRD] meet; the prince defends the land with his sword.
notes
[8] kyngjum ‘frequently’: According to LP, this hap. leg. is either the adverbial dat. of a n. pl. noun kyngi (which is not defined) and means i høj grad ‘to a great degree’ or a m. noun kyngr related to a Norw. word meaning ‘clump’, though how the latter would work in this context is not made clear. In ÍF 34, the word is taken as an adverbial form from the dat. pl. of a f. noun kyngja ‘a great quantity’, and thus to mean ‘frequently’. A f. noun kyngi or kyngja with this meaning is recorded in ModIcel. (Sigfús Blöndal 1920-4, 427; ÍO: kyngi), but the adverbial form is not. ÍO suggests a meaning með rykkjum ‘with tugs, jerks’ for the OIcel. adverbial form and this could be appropriate here. But in the absence of other instances of this word, the translation proposed in ÍF 34 is the most likely and is adopted here.