Rv Lv 10^II

Judith Jesch (ed.) 2009, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl Kali Kolsson, Lausavísur 10’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 587.

Dúsið ér, en Ása
— atatata — liggr í vatni,
— hutututu — hvar skalk sitja? —
— heldrs mér kalt — við eldinn.

Ér dúsið við eldinn, en Ása—atatata!—liggr í vatni—hutututu! Hvar skalk sitja? Mérs heldr kalt.

You are [all] sitting around by the fire, while Ása—atatata!—is lying in the water—hutututu! Where shall I sit? I am rather cold.

Flat(139va), R702ˣ(43v) (Orkn)

[1] Dúsið ér (‘Dwsi þer’): ‘Dunn þer’ R702ˣ

[3] hutututu: utututu R702ˣ

As for Lv 8.

[All]: While Rǫgnvaldr and his men are drying out by the fire, a female servant comes in shivering and saying something that no one can understand except Rǫgnvaldr. The st. is introduced by Jarl kvezk skilja tungu hennar ‘The jarl said he understood her speech’. R702^x has a more detailed introduction to the st., explaining that a house-servant named Ása went to fetch water with another woman, but fell into the well í fjúkinu ‘in the snowstorm’ and the other woman ran back to the house kalin mjǫk ‘thoroughly chilled’. However, it is not clear whether this passage derives from R702ˣ’s ms. exemplar or is the copyist’s attempt to explain the situation (ÍF 34, 197 n. 3).

[1] ér ‘you’: This form of the 2nd pers. pl. pron. (ANG §465 Anm. 5) is required by the alliteration.

[2, 3] atatata; hutututu ‘atatata; hutututu’: The prose context suggests that these otherwise unparalleled words are to be interpreted as onomatopoetically representing the chattering teeth of the shivering woman.

[3] hutututu ‘hutututu’: Flat’s form beginning with h- is required by the alliteration.

Skj: Rǫgnvaldr jarl kali Kolsson, Lausavísur 10: AI, 507, BI, 481, Skald I, 236, NN §2983;
Flat 1860-8, II, 474, Orkn 1887, 151, Orkn 1913-16, 219, ÍF 34, 198 (ch. 85), Bibire 1988, 230.

Skj B text:
Dúsið ér, en Ása
- atatata - liggr í vatni,
hutututu - hvar skalk sitja?
(heldr er mér kalt) við eldinn.

Thirty-two of Rǫgnvaldr’s lvv. (Rv Lv 1-32) are transmitted in Orkn (for Lv 33-5^III, see SkP III). They fall into several thematic groups, most of which also include sts by Rǫgnvaldr’s fellow-poets: youthful lvv. (Lv 1-3); lvv. about miscellaneous events, mostly political, in Orkney (Lv 4-5, 32; cf. Anon Orkn, Bót Lv); lvv. responding to, or associated with, lvv. by other poets (Lv 6, 13; cf. Árm Lv 1, Hbreiðm Lv, Oddi Lv 1); lvv. associated with Shetland (Lv 7-12, 14?); the Ermingerðr of Narbonne lvv. (Lv 15-17, 19-22, 25; cf. Árm Lv 3, Oddi Lv 2), which overlap with further lvv. concerning the journey to and from the Holy Land (Lv 18, 23-4, 26, 30-31; cf. Árm Lv 2, 4, Oddi Lv 3, Sigm Lv 1, Þsvart Lv); and lvv. in the Holy Land (Lv 27-9; cf. Sigm Lv 2).

Lv 4-11, 13, 17-19, 21, 23-30 are transmitted in Flat (Flat) and also in R702ˣ, a collection of sts from a lost ms. of Orkn, and its copy 762ˣ. Flat is the main ms. for these sts, as it is for Lv 20, 22, which are not preserved in R702ˣ. Lv 1-3, 15-16, 31-2 are in the same mss and also in the fragmentary saga-ms. 325I, which is thus the main ms. for these. Despite its late date and compilatory character, R702ˣ is quite high up the stemma and its readings are occasionally preferred to both main mss where justified. Moreover, it is the only source for Lv 12, 14. Lv 7 is the only one of Rǫgnvaldr’s lvv. which is transmitted both in Orkn and in the treatises on poetics, in this case LaufE, which also transmits Rv Lv 34-5^III.

Prose sources

692

Flateyjarbók (Flat) 693

694

46

Orkneyinga saga (Orkn) 47

48

Physical sources (mss and inscriptions)

Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.