ǪrvOdd Lv 16VIII (Ǫrv 49)/2 — veslar ‘pathetic’
Hvar váruð* þá, veslar snýtur,
er vér heldum aski í Elfarsund,
teitir ok reifir at Trönuvágum?
Þar lá Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani,
trauðastr flugar, á tveim skipum.
Hvar váruð* þá, veslar snýtur, er vér heldum aski í Elfarsund, teitir ok reifir at Trönuvágum? Þar lá Ögmundr Eyþjófsbani, trauðastr flugar, á tveim skipum.
Where were you then, pathetic snotty wretches, when we sailed our ship into the Götaälv estuary, happy and cheerful, to Trǫnuvágar? There lay Ǫgmundr Eyþjófsbani (‘Eyþjófr’s killer’), most reluctant to flee, in two ships.
readings
[2] veslar snýtur: om. all others
notes
[1-2] hvar váruð* þá, veslar snýtur ‘where were you then, pathetic snotty wretches’: Those eds who keep these lines (Ǫrv 1888; Ǫrv 1892) emend ms. var to váruð ‘you (pl.) were ...’, taking the initial <þ> of the ms.’s þit as part of the verb and retaining an alternative form, it, of the second person dual pron. þit. However, line 1 is a Type B-line with alliteration on v-, and it would be highly unusual to have a verbal ending ‑uð plus a personal pron. in the dip. In addition, line 2 is suspect, with resolution on the first lift in a trisyllabic word (vesalar). Here the ms. form has been normalised to the two-syllable variant veslar (for the variants vesal-/vesl- see Heggstad et al. 2008: vesall) and line 1 further emended to Hvar váruð þá ‘Where were you then?’