Sigv Víkv 9I/5 — austan ‘from the east’
Vann ungr konungr Englum
ótrauðr skarar rauðar;
endr kom brúnt á branda
blóð í Nýjamóðu.
Nú hefk orrostur, austan
ógnvaldr, níu talðar;
herr fell danskr, þars dǫrrum
dreif mest at Ôleifi.
Ungr, ótrauðr konungr vann Englum rauðar skarar; brúnt blóð kom endr á branda í Nýjamóðu. Nú hefk talðar níu orrostur, ógnvaldr austan; danskr herr fell, þars dǫrrum dreif mest at Ôleifi.
The young, not unwilling king made the hair of the English red; dark red blood again came onto swords in Nýjamóða. Now I have enumerated nine battles, battle-causer [WARRIOR] from the east; the Danish army fell, where spears drove most against Óláfr.
readings
[5] austan: om. Flat
notes
[5] austan ‘from the east’: In the absence of a better solution, this is taken here as qualifying the noun ógnvaldr ‘battle-causer [WARRIOR]’ (so also NN §614, ÍF 27 and LP: austan, with emendation of ógnvaldr to allvaldr). In addressing Óláfr as ‘from the east’, Sigvatr may simply mean ‘from Norway’, from an Icelandic point of view (cf. austmaðr ‘Norwegian’), or else may refer specifically to Óláfr’s early campaigns in the Baltic. The usage is unusual, since austan most often qualifies verbs or full sentences, as in Sigv Knútdr 7/2 frá austan ‘learned [news] from the east’. Finnur Jónsson (see Note to l. 7 below) originally took austan with danskr herr ‘Danish army’, which gives good sense but awkward word order.