Anon Bjark 6III/8 — þeygi ‘at all’
Gladdi gunnveitir — gengum fagrbúnir —
Þjaza þingskilum þjóðir hermargar,
Rínar rauðmalmi, rógi Niflunga,
vísi inn vígdjarfi; vakði hann Baldr þeygi.
Gunnveitir, inn vígdjarfi vísi, gladdi hermargar þjóðir – gengum fagrbúnir – þingskilum Þjaza, rauðmalmi Rínar, rógi Niflunga; hann vakði Baldr þeygi.
The battle-granter [WARRIOR], the battle-bold prince, gladdened the very numerous troops – we went beautifully adorned – with Þjazi’s <giant’s> assembly declarations [GOLD], with the red metal of the Rhine <river> [GOLD], with the strife of the Niflungar <legendary heroes> [GOLD]; he did not wake Baldr at all.
readings
[8] þeygi: so Tˣ, W, U, A, papp10ˣ, 2368ˣ, 743ˣ, þǫgli R, C, ‘[…]’ B, ‘þeyge’ 744ˣ
notes
[8] hann vakði Baldr þeygi ‘he did not wake Baldr at all’: Or Baldr vakði hann þeygi ‘Baldr did not wake him at all’. However these words are construed, this is the reading of the majority mss against R’s Baldr þǫgli varði hann ‘Baldr the Silent defended him’. The sense of all three possible readings is unclear. A hero by the name of Baldr is not known from any Old Norse source for the legend of Hrólfr kraki’s last battle. In skaldic poetry Baldr is elsewhere the name of one of the gods, son of Óðinn and Frigg (but Víðarr is the ‘silent’ god; cf. SnE 1998, I, 19: hinn þǫgla Ás) or the base-word of a man-kenning (cf. LP: Baldr). It is possible, as suggested by Faulkes (SnE 1998, I, 189), that the Baldr of this line was originally part of a warrior-kenning or that the variant readings vakði/vakti ‘awakened’ and þeygi ‘not at all, by no means’ might be the remains of an allusion to the episode of the apparently inactive Bǫðvarr bjarki in Hrólfr’s last battle, whose body lay inert in his tent but who participated in the fighting in the shape of a bear (cf. Hrólf 1960, 118). Skj B and Skald adopt the mixed-reading version varði hann Baldr þeygi ‘Baldr did not defend him at all’.