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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Eyv Lv 14I/5 — selda ‘sold’

Fengum feldarstinga,
fjǫrð- ok galt við -hjǫrðu,
þanns álhimins útan
oss lendingar sendu.
Mest selda ek mínar
við mævǫrum sævar
— hallæri veldr hvôru —
hlaupsildr Egils gaupna.

Fengum feldarstinga, þanns lendingar álhimins sendu oss útan, ok galt við fjǫrðhjǫrðu. Mest selda ek mínar hlaupsildr gaupna Egils við mævǫrum sævar; hallæri veldr hvôru.

We [I] received a cloak-pin, which the landsmen of the channel-sky [ICE > ICELANDERS] sent us [me] from abroad [Iceland], and I spent it on fjord-herds [HERRINGS]. Most of all I sold my leaping herrings of Egill’s <legendary hero’s> palms [ARROWS] for the slender arrows of the sea [HERRINGS]; the famine causes both things.

notes

[5] mest selda ek ‘most of all I sold’: This assumes a well-attested sense for the adv. mest (so also Frank 1978, 116). Skj B treats it as if adjectival (hence ‘all my arrows’), while ÍF 26 suggests síðast ‘most recently’, on the analogy of meir ‘later’.

grammar

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