Ótt Lv 2I/6 — með ‘with’
Svá skal kveðja konung Dana,
Íra ok Engla ok Eybúa,
at hans fari með himinkrǫptum
lǫndum ǫllum lof víðara.
Skal svá kveðja konung Dana, Íra ok Engla ok Eybúa, at lof hans fari með himinkrǫptum víðara ǫllum lǫndum.
[I] shall so greet the king of the Danes, of the Irish and of the English and of the Island-dwellers [= Knútr], that his praise may travel with heavenly support more widely through all the lands.
readings
[6] með: ‘me’ DG8
notes
[6] með himinkrǫptum ‘with heavenly support’: Skj B emends to himinskautum ‘(under) the regions of heaven’, i.e. the whole earth, by analogy with occurrences elsewhere in eddic and skaldic verse (LP: himinskaut). However, the proposed parallels all postdate Óttarr’s work by at least a century and a half, and the reading of DG8 gives perfectly good sense. The second element could be either kraptr ‘power, might’ (compare cognate OE cræft) or krapti ‘timber, pillar’. Kock (NN §3073) argues for the element to be kraptr, with the resultant meaning ‘with heavenly powers’ or ‘with heavenly support’, as here, following ÓHLeg 1982, 131 (mit himmlischen Beistand). Óttarr’s stanza thus makes a bold claim of divine sanction for both the king’s fame and the poet’s praise, a claim in keeping with both the language of the 1027 Letter (which stresses divine omnipotence) and other poems for Knútr (such as the ‘cosmic’ refrains of Sigv Knútdr 3/1 and 7/1, Þloft Hfl, Þloft Tøgdr 1/1, and Hallv Knútdr 8/8: see Note to Þloft Hfl [All]).