Anon (Ragn) 8VIII (Ragn 38)/8 — þorps ‘habitation’
Þat var fyrir löngu, er í leið megir
Heklings fóru hlumtungum
fram um salta slóð birtinga;
þá varð ek þessa þorps ráðandi.
Þat var fyrir löngu, er megir Heklings fóru í leið hlumtungum fram um salta slóð birtinga; þá varð ek ráðandi þessa þorps.
It was long ago when the sons of Heklingr went on their way with oar-handle tongues [OAR BLADES] over the salt track of sea-trout [SEA]; then I became the ruler of this habitation.
readings
[8] þorps: ‘þorfs’ 1824b, 2845
notes
[7-8] þessa þorps ‘of this habitation’: Evans (1986, 95-7) surveys the various senses that have been proposed for the word þorp as it occurs in Hávm 50/1-2 (NK 24; cf. Evans 1986, 49): Hrørnar þǫll, | sú er stendr þorpi á ‘a pine-tree standing in an area of human habitation withers’. Among the senses proposed is ‘mound’ (cf. LP: þorp 2), which might seem to be suggested by the prose context of the present stanza as it occurs in Hálf, where a burial-mound is mentioned; there is nothing in the stanza itself, however, to justify this interpretation, nor does the word þorp occur in the accompanying prose, either in Hálf or in Ragn. Evans plumps for the meaning ‘habitation’ as being the usual sense of the word in Old Norse (and, in the Hávm context, the one that makes most sense). This interpretation has been adopted here.