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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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TorfE Lv 3I/4 — son ‘son’

Ey munk glaðr, síz geirar
— gótts vinna þrek manni —
bǫðfíkinna bragna
bitu þengils son ungan.
Þeygi dylk, nema þykki
— þar fló grár af sôrum
hræva nagr of holma —
hól undvala gœli.

Munk ey glaðr, síz geirar bǫðfíkinna bragna bitu ungan son þengils; gótts manni vinna þrek. Þeygi dylk, nema hól þykki gœli undvala; þar fló grár nagr hræva af sôrum of holma.

I will be forever glad now that spears of battle-keen men pierced the young son of the king [= Hálfdan]; it is good for a man to do a heroic deed. Not at all do I conceal the fact that it seems like vaunting to the comforter of wound-falcons [RAVENS/EAGLES > WARRIOR = Haraldr]; there the grey bird of corpses [EAGLE] flew from the wounded over the islands.

notes

[1, 4] geirar ... bitu ungan son þengils ‘spears ... pierced the young son of the king [= Hálfdan]’: These words conflict with the prose accounts in Orkn and Hkr (see Context to Lv 2, and cf. ÍF 26, 132) which have Hálfdan escaping from battle and being put to death by the type of Viking atrocity known as the blóðǫrn ‘blood-eagle’ (cf. von See 1960, 36-7; on the blood-eagle see Note to Sigv Knútdr 1 [All]). The omission of the present stanza from Hkr may be an attempt to avoid this conflict (von See 1960, 36-8; ÍF 34); see further Note to Lv 5/7-8.

kennings

grammar

case: acc.

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