Wow,
thanks for putting the poem online, Haukur. This is very cool! I
like the idea that all the snakes in the snake-pit have their own
names. Okay, it's a poetic device, but I just picture Atli doting
on his slithery pets. I wonder if [*insert modern tyrant of
choice*] takes as much care of their snake-pit.
Orthographical query. In st. 1 ftr (foetr), 6 rkir (roekir), 9
brðrum (broedrum). But st. 3 sætara (saetara), 2 hrærði (hraerdi),
18 glæpum (glaepum). In 12, 13 and 14, is `hlær mik' an alternative
way of saying `hlgir mik' (hloegir)?
"margt er þar úrelt" - it was the use of the French word `reins'
for kidneys that surprised me. Even the Oxford English Dictionary
doesn't have that, as far as I can see. "ýmislegt misskilið"-any
instructive examples? Or is that our homework?
In st. 7, `oss um véla' is translated "deceive us both". Is the
plural often used in place of the dual in Old Norse, or would the
plural normally be a sure sign that more than two people are
referred to?
I'll have a closer look later...
*
Gunnarsslagr is one of the tunes played by Gestr in Nornagests þáttr.
Tekr Gestr hörpu sína ok slær vel ok lengi um kveldit, svá at öllum
þykkir unað í á at heyra, ok slær þó Gunnarsslag bezt. Ok at lyktum
slær hann Guðrúnarbrögð in fornu. Þau höfðu menn eigi fyrr heyrt. Ok
eptir þat sváfu menn af um nóttina. [
http://www.snerpa.is/net/forn/nornages.htm ].
...and Guest took his harp and played it well till far into the
evening, so that it was a joy to all who heard him. What he rendered
best was The Harping of Gunnar; and last of all he played the
ancient Wiles of Guthrun, neither of which they had heard before.
And after that they went to sleep for the night.
(From the translation by Joseph Harris [
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~ext12129/Thattr/ThattrofNornagest
.html ])
On "The Harping of Gunnar," Harris notes, "a lost poem. The legend
here referred to is told in Völsunga Saga, ch. 37 (and elsewhere),
doubtless from an old lay." On "The Ancient Wiles of Guthrún,"
(great name that!) Harris notes, "It is generally believed that this
is the name of another lost heroic poem. But the title may possibly
mean The Adventure of Guthrún, in which case the poem referred to
may be the well-known Ancient Lay of Guthrún (Guðrúnarkviða hin
forna). This latter poem is alluded to in ch. 9 below under the
title of Guðrúnarræða."
Thinks: `þau...eigi' is translated "neither of which" here. But
since `brögð' is itself neuter plural, I wonder if it could be just
the latter tune that they hadn't heard before?
Anyway, from Harris's translation of The Thattr of Nornagest, ch. 9:
Guest replied: "It is generally believed that Guthorm the son of
Gjuki ran a sword through him while he was asleep in bed with
Guthrun. On the other hand, Germans say that Sigurth was slain in
the forest. In the Guthrúnar-rætha again it is stated that Sigurth
and the sons of Gjuki had ridden to a gathering and that they slew
him then. But one thing is agreed by all--that they set on him when
he was down and off his guard, and that they were guilty of gross
treachery toward him."
He notes, "This is no doubt the poem commonly called Guðrúnarkviða
hin forna, the opening of which narrates how Sigurth's horse came
home riderless."
But in place of "in the Guthrúnar-rætha...", Fornaldarsögur
Norðurlanda (the edition from which the Icelandic fornaldarsögur
texts made available by Zoe Borovsky derive) has: En igðurnar sögðu
svá, at Sigurðr ok Gjúka synir hefði riðit til þings nokkurs ok þá
dræpi þeir hann. (Cleasby-Vigfússon: "igða, f. a kind of bird, the
nuthach, Norse [i.e. Norwegian] egde, Sitta europaea." These were
the birds that Sigurðr heard as he was cooking Fáfnir´s heart.
Mentioned in the prose of Fáfnismál, in Völsunga saga and
Skáldskaparmál, but not I think in Guðrúnarkviða hin forna.)
And finally, Gunnar Pálsson wasn't the only maker of lost Eddic
lays, it seems. Tom Shippey writes: "All his life, Tolkien enjoyed
filling gaps in what survives. There is, for instance, a well-known
gap in the Codex Regius manuscript of the Poetic Edda, where some
eight pages of the Sigurðr cycle are missing. But Tolkien wrote two
poems to fill this gap, in Old Norse, in the appropriate meter,
which are called, we believe, Sigurðarkviða hin nýja and
Guðrúnarkviða hin nýja. Unfortunately these remain unprinted."
Tolkien and Iceland, the Philology of Envy [
http://www.nordals.hi.is/shippey.html ].
Llama Nom