BjRagn Lv 4VIII (Ragn 29)/4 — öld ‘allies’
Þat var fyrst, er fórum,
— Freys leika tók ek heyja —
þar er einiga áttum
öld, í Rómaveldi.
Þar lét ek of grön grána
— gall örn of valfalli —
at mannskæðu morði
mitt sverð dregit verða.
Þat var fyrst, er fórum í Rómaveldi, þar er áttum einiga öld; ek tók heyja leika Freys. Þar lét ek sverð mitt verða dregit of grána grön at mannskæðu morði; örn gall of valfalli.
The first thing was that we went into the realm of Rome, where we had no allies; I proceeded to conduct the games of Freyr <god> [BATTLES]. There I let my sword be drawn across a grey moustache in man-harming combat; an eagle screamed above fallen slain.
notes
[3-4] þar er áttum einiga öld ‘where we had no allies’: (a) This edn, with all others except CPB, emends to áttum ‘we had’ and, with Rafn (FSN), Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985), takes einiga as f. acc. sg. of pron. and adj. engi ‘no (one)’, or of adj. einigr ‘not any’ (ONP: einigr 2; cf. ANG §476), qualifying öld, to give ‘where we had no people’ (i.e. allies or followers, hence our heroism was all the greater) or alternatively ‘where we spent little time’. This seems the simplest solution and involves little emendation. (b) Olsen (Ragn 1906-8, 214), influenced by a statement about a lack of food in the prose preceding Ragn 28 (Ragn 1906-8, 160), emends to þars vér einig ôttum eldi ‘where we found little to sustain or delay us (in the way of hospitality)’, and is followed here by Eskeland (Ragn 1944) and Ebel (Ragn 2003). However, emendation to n. acc. pl. einig eldi is unnecessary, and it is not certain that eldi referring to the feeding and/or housing of human beings would have a pl. form: cf. LP: elði 1 and ONP: elði 2. (c) Finnur Jónsson (Skj B), followed by Guðni Jónsson (FSGJ), emends einiga to andvíga ‘rivalling’, hence: ‘where we found our match, found people to rival us’. (d) Kock (NN §496) emends einiga to eivíga ‘ever ready for war, very warlike’, postulating an otherwise unrecorded adj. eivígr by analogy with eilífr ‘ever-living’ and eilítill ‘very small’. However, his translation of áttum, 1st pers. pl. pret. of eiga (‘have, own, possess’) as vi … funno ‘we found, we encountered’, is questionable.