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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Sigv Víkv 2I/1 — Þar ‘There’

Þar vas enn, es ǫnnur
Ôleifr — né svik fôlusk —
odda þing í eyddri
Eysýslu gekk heyja.
Sitt ôttu fjǫr fótum
— fár beið ór stað sára —
enn, þeirs undan runnu,
allvaldr, búendr gjalda.

Þar vas enn, es Ôleifr gekk heyja ǫnnur þing odda í eyddri Eysýslu; svik né fôlusk. Allvaldr, búendr, þeirs runnu undan, ôttu enn gjalda fótum fjǫr sitt; fár beið sára ór stað.

There it came about also that Óláfr proceeded to hold other assemblies of weapon-points [BATTLES] in destroyed Saaremaa; treachery was not hidden. Mighty ruler, the farmers who ran away had again their feet to thank [lit. to repay] for their lives; few stood waiting for wounds.

readings

[1] Þar: þat Holm2, R686ˣ, J2ˣ, 325VI, 73aˣ, 78aˣ, 68, 61, 325V, Bb, Flat, Tóm

notes

[1] þar vas enn, es ‘there it came about also that’: (a) The interpretation here (also that of Skj B and ÍF 27) rests on adopting the rel. conj. es ‘that’ (l. 1). This is found in mss from the three main classes of ÓH mss and is to be preferred to ok ‘and’ or possibly ‘also’ (= adv. auk), since the positioning of gekk ‘went, proceeded’ late in the clause (l. 4) shows that the clause is subordinate. (b) Fell (1981b) keeps the reading of her main ms. Holm2, Þat var enn ok ǫnnur ‘That was next and second’. (c) Kock (NN §§1856, 2467) eclectically chooses variants to make for smoother syntax and more logical meaning: Þat var enn, es annat… ‘It was further, that a second …’. The choice of sg. annat rather than pl. ǫnnur enables the battle-kenning þing odda to be taken as sg., which as Kock points out is preferable in the context of the poem as a whole, where each stanza tells of only one battle.

grammar

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