Ótt Knútdr 7I/5 — Játmundar ‘of Eadmund’
Fjǫrlausa hykk Frísi,
friðskerðir, þik gerðu,
— brauzt með byggðu setri
Brandfurðu þar — randa.
Játmundar hlaut undir
ættniðr gǫfugr hættar;
danskr herr skaut þá dǫrrum
drótt, es þú rakt flótta.
Friðskerðir randa, hykk þik gerðu Frísi fjǫrlausa; þar brauzt Brandfurðu með byggðu setri. Gǫfugr ættniðr Játmundar hlaut hættar undir; danskr herr skaut þá drótt dǫrrum, es þú rakt flótta.
Peace-breaker of shields [WARRIOR], I believe you made the Frisians lifeless; you destroyed Brentford there with its inhabited settlement. The noble descendant of Eadmund [= Edmund Ironside] received dangerous wounds; the Danish army then pierced the host with spears when you pursued the fleeing.
notes
[6-7] ættniðr Játmundar ‘the descendant of Eadmund [= Eadmund Ironside]’: The person referred to by the kenning as a whole is (somewhat confusingly) Eadmund Ironside, though English sources do not record Eadmund as suffering wounds in a battle near Brentford (if the two helmingar refer to the same event). But there are two candidates for the Eadmund who is his ancestor, and determinant of the kenning: the king of East Anglia martyred by vikings in 869, and the king of England from 939-46. Both are plausible: Knútr’s devotion to the cult of S. Eadmund (see Lawson 1993, 142-3) might suggest it is the saint who is being invoked, while Óttarr’s allusion to Eadgar in st. 3/6 indicates that he was familiar with the royal house of Wessex. Eadmund Ironside was indeed the descendant of the tenth-century king, but not of the ninth-century martyr; however, kinship need not be literal in honorific locutions such as this. The same kenning occurs in Ótt Hfl 13/6, 8 as niðja Játmundar ‘kinsman of Eadmund’, but there refers to Æthelred.
kennings
- Gǫfugr ættniðr Játmundar — The noble descendant of Eadmund [= Edmund Ironside]