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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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ǪrvOdd Ævdr 54VIII (Ǫrv 124)/8 — haukr ‘hawk’

Þat var fyrri,         at ek fat senda
orð inum nyrztum         niðjum mínum.
Varð ek svá feginn         fundi þeira
sem hungraðr         haukr bráðum.

Þat var fyrri, at ek fat senda inum niðjum nyrztum orð mínum. Ek varð svá feginn fundi þeira sem hungraðr haukr bráðum.

It happened previously that I sent word to my most northerly kinsmen. I was as joyful at meeting them as a famished hawk at [finding] raw flesh.

notes

[7-8] sem hungraðr haukr ‘as a famished hawk’: All eds except FSGJ emend the sg. adj. and noun of the mss to the pl. hungraðir haukar ‘famished hawks’ to give metrical lines, but the same effect can be achieved by normalising both words to a C14th standard so that both show desyllabification of ‑r to ‑ur. Haukur is already desyllabified in 343a. The problem with emending to the pl. noun and adj. is that the comparison between Oddr’s joy at seeing his relatives and a hawk finding fresh meat seems to require a sg. comparator in both cases. As these lines are only in the younger mss, there is no chronological impediment to presuming late composition; the use of a simile is unusual and possibly indicative of late composition also or of direct borrowing from another poem (see Note to ll. 5-8 above).

grammar

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