Þrøngvisk ér of ungan,
ítrmenni, gram þenna;
bægisk ǫld, svát eigi
Ôleifs náik máli.
Mér varð orð at órum
auðsótt frǫmum dróttni,
þás óðum mjǫk móðir
mjǫll á Dofrafjalli.
Ér þrøngvisk of þenna ungan gram, ítrmenni; ǫld bægisk, svát náik eigi máli Ôleifs. Mér varð orð at frǫmum dróttni órum auðsótt, þás óðum mjǫk móðir mjǫll á Dofrafjalli.
You throng about this young ruler, glorious crowd; people are pushing, so that I cannot obtain speech with Óláfr. For me a word with our outstanding lord was easy to get when we waded, quite exhausted, through the snow on Dovrefjell.
[3] ǫld bægisk ‘people are pushing’: Against the evidence of the mss, Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) reads bægjumk ǫld, which he takes to mean ‘people are holding me back’. But since bægja as a transitive verb means ‘push’, there is nothing objectionable about m. v. bægisk ‘push’ (Kock, NN §1873).