Arn Magndr 3II/8 — sér ‘them’
Gekk á Svíþjóð søkkvi
Sveins, es fremð vann eina;
fýstisk Ôleifs austan
afkart sonar hjarta.
Nôtt beið ok dag dróttins
dygg ferð Jaðarbyggva;
fýst bað gram* í geystu
gífrs veðri sér hlífa.
Søkkvi Sveins, es vann fremð eina, gekk á Svíþjóð; afkart hjarta sonar Ôleifs fýstisk austan. Dygg ferð Jaðarbyggva beið dróttins nôtt ok dag; fýst í geystu veðri gífrs bað gram* hlífa sér.
The queller of Sveinn [= Magnús], who performed nothing but triumph, marched into Sweden; the prodigious heart of the son of Óláfr [= Magnús] was urging from the east. The worthy host of the people of Jæren awaited their liege night and day; urgently, in [their] troubled gale of the troll-woman [MIND], they begged the prince to protect them.
notes
[7, 8] fýst bað gram* hlífa sér ‘urgently, they begged the prince to protect them’: (a) Fýst is taken here as the n. form of the p. p. fýstr, lit. ‘impelled, encouraged,’ used adverbially, hence ‘urgently’. Dygg ferð Jaðarbyggva ‘the worthy host of the people of Jæren’ is construed as being the implied subject of bað ‘begged’ as well as the explicit subject of beið ‘awaited’, and gram ‘prince’ as the object of bað; sér refers back to ferð. The emendation of gramr to gram is justifiable on the grounds that the scribe of Hr frequently alters the text when puzzled by its syntax. (b) Kock (NN §2020) construed ll. 7-8 similarly, but read fýst as f. nom. sg. of fýstr, qualifying ferð, hence ‘eager host’. (c) Finnur Jónsson’s solution in Skj B was to construe: gramr bað fýst ... hlífa sér ‘the prince bade [his own] zeal be his defence’, but this seems semantically difficult.