Ólhelg Lv 5I/8 — gramr ‘The king’
Nærs, sem upp ór eisu
— innar lítk til kvinna —
— snót, hver svá mjǫk láti,
seg mér — loga bregði.
Mik hefr máli sykvinn
mest á skǫmmu fresti
— gekk’k of golf at drekka —
gramr ok brattir hamrar.
Nærs, sem loga bregði upp ór eisu; lítk innar til kvinna; seg mér, snót, hver láti svá mjǫk. Gramr ok brattir hamrar hefr sykvinn mik máli mest á skǫmmu fresti; gekk’k of golf at drekka.
It is almost as if flame shot up from embers; I look further in towards the women; tell me, lady, who puts on airs so much. The king and steep crags [Ingibjǫrg] have cheated me of speech most in a short time; I went across the floor to drink.
notes
[8] gramr ok brattir hamrar ‘the king and steep crags [Ingibjǫrg]’: This is an obvious ofljóst for Ingi (‘king’) bjǫrg (‘crags, cliffs’). Such disguises for women’s names are popular in mansǫngr (Frank 1970). Substitutions and paronomasia involving different heiti for the related concepts ‘stone, rock, mountain, crag’ predominate in the attestations. The names themselves often appear to be stereotypic, and that may be the case here. Ingibjǫrg is identified in the prose context as Finnsdóttir, but there is no narrative attached to the stanza, and chronology would scarcely allow this to be the daughter of Finnr Árnason who later married Þorfinnr Sigurðarson, jarl of Orkney (see ÍF 34, 63 and n. 1).