Ótt Hfl 20I/6 — nôðum ‘we got’
Gegn, (eru þér at þegnum)
þjóðskjǫldunga góðra
haldið hæft á veldi
(Hjaltlendingar kenndir).
Engi varð á jǫrðu
ógnbráðr, áðr þér nôðum,
austr, sás eyjum vestan,
ynglingr, und sik þryngvi.
Gegn, haldið hæft á veldi góðra þjóðskjǫldunga; Hjaltlendingar eru kenndir þér at þegnum. Engi ógnbráðr ynglingr, sás þryngvi und sik eyjum vestan, varð austr á jǫrðu, áðr nôðum þér.
Trustworthy one, you hold fittingly onto the power of good kings of the people; the Shetlanders are known to you as your thanes. No battle-bold king who subjugated under himself the islands in the west arose east in the land, before we got you.
readings
[6] nôðum: nôðuð Bb, 325V, 75a, 73aˣ, DG8, Flat, náði 332ˣ, R, Tˣ, U, náðit C
notes
[6] nôðum ‘we got’: A number of mss read 3rd pers. sg. náði, presumably either with jǫrð ‘land’ as the understood subject (‘before it [the land] got you’) or as an impersonal construction (‘until you were got, until you appeared’: see SnE 1998, II, 361). There is some sense to this reading, since, according to saga accounts, Óttarr was neither Norwegian nor (as ÍF 27 notes) in Óláfr’s retinue at the time of composition of Hfl, so the use of 1st pers. pl. ‘we’ might seem presumptuous. The variant nôðuð in several mss would give áðr þér nôðuð ‘before you attained [this; the lordship]’.