Sigv Víkv 1I/8 — sker ‘sker’
Langr bar út inn unga
jǫfra kund at sundi
(þjóð uggði sér síðan)
sæmeiðr (konungs reiði).
Kannk til margs enn manna
minni; fyrsta sinni
hann rauð œstr fyr austan
ulfs fót við sker Sóta.
Langr sæmeiðr bar inn unga kund jǫfra út at sundi; þjóð uggði sér síðan reiði konungs. Kannk enn minni manna til margs; fyrsta sinni rauð hann œstr fót ulfs fyr austan við Sótasker.
The long sea-tree [SHIP] carried the young descendant of princes [= Óláfr] out to sea; the people then feared the wrath of the king. I still know people’s memories about many a thing; on the first occasion he, vehement, reddened the wolf’s foot in the east at Sótasker.
notes
[8] Sótasker: This appears to be a p. n. accommodated in the stanza by means of mild tmesis, and it is treated as such in the prose sources. It would mean ‘Sóti’s skerry/skerries’, and the naming of the (otherwise unknown) viking leader as Sóti in ÓH-Hkr may be an extrapolation from the p. n. Sigvatr may be using legendary material here to flesh out the details of a battle about which he is reliant on hearsay (cf. ll. 5-6). A viking of this name and a location in the Swedish skerries are mentioned in both the prose and verse of Ǫrvar-Odds saga (see Hjálm Lv 9/4VIII (Ǫrv 19) and ǪrvOdd Ævdr 43/1, 2VIII (Ǫrv 113)), and a viking called Sóti features in Hallfr (ÍF 8, 139-40). Johnsen (1916, 5) suggests that the place was Sotholmen off the coast of Södermanland, Sweden. Holmen ‘the island, islet’ would correspond with sker, and this would fit the description of the site as fyr austan ‘in the east’ (l. 7). A Swedish location would also match the reference to Óláfr’s attacks on nes Svíþjóðar ‘the headlands of Sweden’ in Ótt Hfl 6/4 as well as Snorri’s location of the present battle in Sweden (see Context). ÓHLeg (1982, 40) on the other hand locates Sótasker in Viken, Norway.