Anon Gát 3III/6 — goða ‘of gods’
Þá sá ek fljúga þriðja sinni:
silki saumat ok sænska menn,
Gunnlaugs bana ok goða brenni,
kú kollótta ok kvíslatré,
gnúp gildligan; gettu, hvat þeir heita!
Þá sá ek fljúga þriðja sinni: saumat silki ok sænska menn, bana Gunnlaugs ok brenni goða, kollótta kú ok kvíslatré, gildligan gnúp; gettu, hvat þeir heita!
Then I saw fly a third time: sewn silk and Swedish men, Gunnlaugr’s slayer and burner of gods, cow without horns and a forked tree, a massive peak; guess what they are called!
notes
[6] brenni goða ‘burner of gods’: In 743ˣ Árni Magnússon has added the note Már brenndi goðin ‘Már burnt the gods’, and 1562ˣ also has the gloss Már. Már is ‘seagull’ (Þul Fugla 1/8 and 7/4) and also a pers. n. but any other details about the incident referred to are now lost. Lbs 1199 4°ˣ and Lbs 756 4°ˣ claim Már brenndi goðin, les Kjalnesinga sǫgu ‘Már burnt the gods, read Kjalnesinga saga’, but in the extant version it is Búi Andríðsson, one of the major characters, who burns the temple. There is no extant text of the saga that mentions anyone called Már, and Búi is mockingly nicknamed hundr ‘dog’, but not anything to do with birds. There are also temple- and idol-burnings in Friðþjófs saga, Njáls saga, Ǫrvar-Odds saga, Harðar saga, Hrafnkels saga and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, but none of the perpetrators (Friðþjófr, Hrappr, Oddr, Þorgeirr, Grímkell, and Óláfr respectively) share their names with birds (although Lbs 1116 4°ˣ does suggest ‘Hrapp’). In Hallfreðar saga (ch. 4, ÍF 8, 146) Már Jǫrundsson, who also appears in Ldn, Vatn and HrHalt, is nicknamed Blót-Már ‘Sacrifice-Már’ and described as allheiðinn ‘completely heathen’ in Hfr Lv 1/4V (Hallfr 2), but this seems to be rather the opposite of what is required, since he would presumably then worship idols of the gods, not burn them.