Bjarmij Lv 1VIII (Heiðr 14)/2 — lítil ‘little’
Logit er mart at þér lítil of efni;
frækn með fyrðum var faðir þinn taliðr.
Stendr Angantýs ausinn moldu
salr í Sámsey sunnanverðri.
Mart er logit at þér of lítil efni; faðir þinn var taliðr frækn með fyrðum. Salr Angantýs, ausinn moldu, stendr í sunnanverðri Sámsey.
Greatly are you lied to, about little substance; your father was reckoned bold among warriors. Angantýr’s hall, sprinkled with soil, stands in the southern part of Samsø.
readings
[2] lítil of: ef lítit corrected from ‘ef lítil’ in the hand of JR R715ˣ
notes
[2] of lítil efni ‘about little substance’: Neither ms. has a completely satisfactory reading here, and it seems a word or words were missing from the end of the line in both versions, since R715ˣ’s efni is added in the hand of the annotator, Jón Rugman (whose ef lítit er efni appears to be an attempt to make sense of something he did not understand). Nevertheless, as things stand this reading must be accepted, with of interpreted as a prep. + acc. ‘about, of’; cf. Heggstad et al. 2008: of B. 8. ‘om, over (om sak, emne)’ ‘about (a matter, subject)’. Heiðr 1956, 11 gives the line as here, while Heiðr 1960 prefers the arrangement of lítil efni, which is hypermetrical, and translates ‘with little substance’, which would require a dat. object rather than the nom./acc. pl. here. Skj B prefers to omit of/ef and emend R715ˣ’s er ‘is’, omitted in the present edn, to the pl.: lítil eru efni, translating lidet (sandt) er deri ‘little (truth) is in it’; however, this seems unlikely as a scribal error and may be discounted. Kock construes lítil of frétt, perhaps ‘little [is] news’, from 2845, pointing out the contrast mart er logit with lítil er frétt (FF §44). However, frétt seems to belong to l. 3, corresponding to R715ˣ’s frækn (which is to be preferred), which leads Kock to insert there a purely conjectural framr ‘foremost’.
grammar
Strong form: in -ll
| masc. | fem. | neut. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | N A G D | gamall gamlan gamals gǫmlum | gǫmul gamla gamallar gamalli | gamalt gamalt gamals gǫmlu |
| pl. | N A G D | gamlir gamla gamalla gǫmlum | gamlar gamlar gamalla gǫmlum | gǫul gǫmul gamalla gǫmlum |