ESk Øxfl 4III/4 — sævar ‘by the sea’
Nýt buðumk (Njarðar dóttur)
(nálægt vas þat -skála)
(vel of hrósak því) vísa
vǫrn (sævar ǫl-) (barni).
Nýt buðumk vísa vǫrn; þat vas nálægt ǫlskála sævar; of hrósak því barni dóttur Njarðar vel.
The useful one offered me secure protection; that was close to the ale-hall by the sea; I truly praise that child of Njǫrðr’s <god’s> daughter [= Freyja > = Hnoss (hnoss ‘treasure’)].
notes
[4] ǫl-; sævar ‘ale-; by the sea’: In the present edn, ǫl ‘ale’ (so all mss) is taken as the first element in the cpd ǫlskála ‘ale-hall’ (tmesis, see st. 5/3 below), and sævar ‘by the sea’ as a gen. of place. Skj B also construes sævar with skála as a gen. of place, but Finnur Jónsson emends ǫl ‘ale’ to øx ‘axe’ and reads nýt øx buðumk vísa vǫrn ‘the splendid axe offered me secure protection’, creating an unprecedented four-part even line. Kock (NN §2057B) emends ǫl to bál ‘fire’ and construes a gold-kenning bál sævar ‘fire of the sea’, which refers to the gold inlaid in the weapon (see Note to l. 2 above). Both readings are unmetrical (the nominal syllable in position 4 must be short) and not supported by the ms. witnesses. Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 44, 186) emends ǫl to ǫll (f. nom. sg.) ‘all’ which he takes as an adj. qualifying vǫrn (ǫll nýt vǫrn vísa ‘all the ruler’s helpful protection’). That construction again creates an unprecedented four-part even line (l. 4).