ǪrvOdd Lv 22VIII (Ǫrv 55)/6 — darraðar ‘of the banner’
Váru vit Ásmundr opt í bernsku
fóstbræðr saman báðir litnir.
Bar ek fyr stilli stöng darraðar,
þar sem konungar kappi deildu.
Váru vit Ásmundr fóstbræðr litnir báðir saman opt í bernsku. Ek bar stöng darraðar fyr stilli, þar sem konungar deildu kappi.
Ásmundr and I, the foster-brothers, were seen both together often in our childhood. I bore the pole of the banner before the ruler, where kings tried their courage.
readings
[6] stöng darraðar: döglings lengi 173ˣ
notes
[6] stöng darraðar ‘the pole of the banner’: Oddr presumably refers to the fact that he was a standard bearer in royal contests, stöng being the pole and darraðr the fabric banner. The meaning of darraðr has been debated. Although this noun occurs elsewhere in poetry, it is not certain whether it means ‘spear’ (unlikely in the present instance (cf. LP: darraðr)) or ‘banner, pennant’, a sense favoured by most recent commentators and eds; cf. Eyv Hák 2/7I en darraðr hristisk ‘and the banner shook’, Egill Hfl 5/2V (Eg 38) vefr darraðar ‘the web of the pennant [STANDARD]’ and the same collocation in Anon Darr 4/2V (Nj 56) vef darraðar ‘the fabric of the pennant’, a phrase occuring as a leitmotif in the latter poem, interpreted by the composer of Nj, almost certainly in error, as referring to the pers. n. Dǫrruðr.