287. Door of Delling, a Dverg = the rock; before his door = on the ground.
288. A sword.
289. Spider.
290. Woman’s house.
291. On the sea.
292. The swans swim to their nests and lay eggs; the shell of the eggs is neither made by hand nor shaped by hammer, but the swan with whom they beget the eggs is breasting the waves outside the islands.
293. The bears of the North sleep all winter.
294. Ægir.
295. Ægir = the sea.
296. Ran, the wife of Ægir. According to the Prose Edda, Gymir is the same as Ægir and Hlér.
297. Rocks.
298. Horse.
299. Odin.
300. His sword.
301. Háva = of the high, namely Odin; mál = song.
302. Giver in the text = host.
303. Meaning: anything will do at home.
304. Good sense.
305. Here the text has breast for mind or heart. The meaning of the stanza is that it is very hard to know another man’s mind.
306. This refers to Odin getting drunk from the mead of poetry which he stole from Suttung. (See later Edda.)
307. A Jotun woman.
308. I.e., supporters.
309. Make fun of him.
310. The meaning of this line is somewhat obscure; it probably means that every man has two sides to his character.
311. The application is missing in the text.
312. The text of part of this verse is missing.
313. The sense of this stanza is most difficult; the meaning of first part seems to be that tongue and head are of one host, and nevertheless the tongue may be the head’s bane. The latter part probably means: the hand of a foe or friend may be hidden under any cloak.
314. Here we see the custom of counting weeks by five.
315. Doom, judgment passed by men over man = his name.
316. In a paper MS. of 1684 some verses are found which are not on the skin text.
317. Lostfagr = so fair as to kindle lust.
318. Billing occurs in Voluspa as a name of dverg.
319. This means—as if I was mad with love.
320. Odrerir = song-inspirer or vessel for the poetic mead.
321. Midgard.
322. Odin.
323. Odin.
324. I.e., the Temple ring which, like the Bible now, was formerly used for oaths.
325. These three verses are repeated at the head of nearly each stanza but omitted after this stanza.
326. I.e., mistress.
327. No man is another’s friend who says only what he wishes.
328. To Odin is attributed the power to make men in battle mad with terror like swine.—‘Ynglinga Saga,’ ch. 6.
329. Something as alms.
330. War.
331. Men.
333. Meaning that she would have no meals before she came to the gods, as she intended to die with her father.
334. He had a son called Gunnar, who had died a short time before. The best stanzas only are given.
335. I.e., tongue. The heavy air of the tongue = breath.
336. Odin’s the t = poetry.
337. The breast. The people believed that thought came from the breast.
338. The mead, stolen by Odin, poetry, song. See the later Edda.
339. The kinsmen of Odin are the Asar.
340. Boat of the Dvergar, the poetical mead.
341. Ymir’s blood, the sea. Egil thinks he hears the roar of the surf near the mound of the drowned son; it intensifies his sorrow.
342. House of my kinsmen, the mound where his son with other kinsmen was buried.
343. The shore bringing the bodies of the drowned.
344. As timber is the material for workmanship, so “timber of songs” means the subject from which the song is made.
345. As the leaves hang on the branches of the trees, so the words hang on the timber of song.
346. The mouth.
347. Daughter of Ægir.
348. Meaning that his kinsmen are round him like a sheltering wall.
349. I.e., he sees the seat of his son empty.
350. Björn = Thor. The women of Björn = the Troll women.
351. We see the custom of slave-women.
352. Breast, called here the burg of the mind.
353. Geirlauk.
354. Odin.
355. To be an old maid seems to have been looked upon as a curse.
356. Speech runes.
357. One of the Nornir, representing the past.
358. Husbands.
359. The gold of Fafnir’s lair.
360. The door-post.
361. Sigurd’s horse.
362. Horses.
363. Probably Sigurd’s body had been thrown into the forest after he was slain in his bed.
364. Knut Dana-ast was the brother of Harald Blue-tooth.
365. Thráin, some unknown champion.
366. Berserks-gang = going like a Berserk into fits of frenzy.
367. Cf. also Ynglinga Saga, 6; Njal, 104; Egil, 27, 40; Vatnsdæla, 46; Fornmanna Sögur, i. 132; Svarfdæla, 7; Orvar Odd, 14; Droplaugar Sona Saga, 19.
368. Landnama, Part V., ch. 5; Hrolf Kraki’s last fight, 50, 51.
369. The wall of the burg is called here fence.
370. Two other manuscripts, Vestra Saxa king.
371. “Ragnar Lodbrok’s Saga is only a continuation of the Volsunga Saga, and especially dwells upon the subject that Ragnar’s wife Aslaug was descended from Sigurd Fafnisbani. The other story seems to be a fragment of the same large Saga about Harald Hilditonn and his descendants, which describes the end of Ivar Vidfadme and the Bravalla battle” (Munch: ‘History of Norway’).
Trustworthy registry of relationship in ancient Northern writings unite in putting Ragnar Lodbrok three generations earlier than the discovery of Iceland, which took place between 870–880.
372. Ragnar Lodbrok’s Saga, c. ii.
373. They seem to have believed that Elf (river) was derived from Alfar.
374. Apparently there were two kings of the name Ella.
375. The date of the battle was probably about the year A.D. 700.
376. Kœnugard (Kief).
377. Buckler, probably a smaller shield.
378. The “wedge shape” was the same as that called cuneus by the ancient Romans, and was very old; it is mentioned by Tacitus.
379. Riddaraskap = equestrian exercises.
380. The word Thurs is used as an abusive term.
381. Kylfa. In several places in the Sagas the use of heavy clubs as weapons is mentioned.
382. For continuation see chapter on “Burials.”
383. The numbers of the Huna-host are differently given in different texts. It is difficult to find the exact numbers, as Latin letters are used, and sometimes forty and sixty (XL., LX.) seem to be confused; this may be due to the carelessness of the scribe.
384. Part of the text of this stanza is missing.
385. Walking with her bridesmaids.
386. Money.
387. The custom of throwing a spear over the host to give it to Odin.
388. Lod-Brók = Hairy breeches. He made a dress of hairy breeches and a hairy cloak, which he boiled in pitch and then hardened: this was done in order that he should be able to attack the serpent which watched over Thora, who was said to surpass all other women in beauty as the hart does other animals, and was most accomplished in all handiwork. Afterwards he appears to have married Aslaug, the daughter of Sigurd Fafnisbani by Brynhild. They begat several children. The oldest, Ivar, had no bones in his body, but was very wise; the others were Bjorn, Hvitserk, Rognvald, and Sigurd (Snake-eye).
389. From Landnama we find that Ragnar had been previously married, and had other children in addition to those already enumerated.
390. Another son of Hundasteinar and Alof was named Eirik, father of Sigurd Bjódaskalli, father of Vikinga Kári, father of Bödvar, Vigfús and Eirik, who was the father of Ástrid, mother of King Olaf Tryggvason. (Landnama, p. 234.)
391. In Ragnar’s Sons’ Saga, ch. ii., the two are said to be built in Norway. Ragnar says to Aslaug: “I have had two knörrs built in Vestfold, because his realm extended to the Dofrafjalls and Lidandisness.”
392. Following word obscure.
393. The old one = Ragnar; the pigs = his sons.
394. In another the name is given as Jorvik or York.
395. It may have been a suburb of the present London.
396. Ivar, who, according to the Sagas, did great things in England, is no doubt the same man who is called in the chronicles Ingvr, Lodbrók’s son, who in 870 killed King Eadmund the Holy.
The English writers mention Ingvar and Ubbi, the sons of Lodbrók, as having taken a leading part in killing the king; and as the Sagas don’t speak of any son of Lodbrók who fought in England other than “Ivar,” Ingvar and Ivar must be one and the same person.
397. Sigurd Snake-eye was married to Blœja, daughter of King Ella; their son was Knut, or Horda-Knut, who acquired the realm after his father, and Selund, Skani, and Halland.
398. Stanza omitted; corrupted, cannot be made out.
399. Hild is here an abbreviation for Ragnhild.
400. Hrolf.
401. The higher class of landowners.
402. Ygg (Odin). A wolf of Ygg means a champion.
403. If he becomes a viking he will not spare Harald’s men.
404. The name Longsword is usually given to Hrolf’s son William (Löngumspada).
405. Then Hákon the Great was the son of the daughter’s daughter of Harald Fairhair.
406. Northmandi; th is here in the place of the soft Icelandic d or ð.
407. This shows that Bretland must have been Wales.
408. Cf. also Egil’s Saga, c. 62.
409. = Ravaged.
410. In open shields, or the hollow of the shields; the rear.
411. Hönd = hand or arm.
412. Ground of the hood = forehead; its rocks = the eyebrows.
413. Brother inheriting brother.
414. This Hakon was a grandson of the great Hakon jarl.
415. The Thingamen seems to have been a kind of standing army, like the Væringians in Constantinople.
416. Snilling = master of speech.
417. He was married to Æthelred’s daughter (see preceding page).
418. In the north of England.
419. Karlsa, or Karl’s river, said to be Garonne.
420. After his death he was the saint or patron of Norway.
421. Cf. also Knytlinga Saga, c. 7 to 9; St. Olaf, c. 23.
422. This shows that Valland was in the west of France.
423. Knut the Great’s English campaigns are told by three poets, Sighvat, Ottar the Black, and Thórd Kolbeinsson.
424. Knut (Canute) reigned from A.D. 1014–1035, and was succeeded by his son Harald.
425. Hlokk of horns = valkyrja of horns = woman.
426. British here means English; otherwise usually Welsh.
427. Sworn brother = foster-brother.
428. Her = host, togi = leader.
429. Fylkja; the array itself is called Fylking.
430. Fylkingar-arm.
431. Fylking.
432. In Heimskringla the corresponding passage has Stanfurdubryggja.
433. All through the Sagas we see that it seemed the custom that one-third of the men should remain on board of the ships to protect them.
434. Sveit.
435. It was a shieldburgh, with walls and roof of shields.
436. In Snorri the twenty horsemen are described thus: “Twenty horsemen of the Thingmannalid rode up in front of the array of the Northmen. They were armoured all over and also their horses. Then a horseman said: ‘Is Tosti jarl here in the host?’” (Snorri Sturluson, Harald Hardradi’s Saga, c. 9.)
From this we see that the English, like their kinsmen, had horsemen; and the finds of spurs, &c., prove this.
437. Meaning that if he had been known he would have been slain.
438. “One winter after the fall of King Harald (Hardradi) his body was brought from England north to Nidarós (Throndhjem) and buried in Maria Church, which he had built” (Harald Hardradi’s Saga, c. 104).
439. For the story of Flóki taking three ravens with him in order to guide him on his expedition to Iceland.
440. A lost Saga.
441. There is no account of Gunnbjorn’s journey.
442. Fourteenth century.
443. The laws were, according to Landnáma, enacted A.D. 1000.
444. Hafgerding = the walls of the ocean, monster waves on the ocean.
445. Cf. Harald Hardrádi at Stamfordbridge.
446. Hella = a plain of ice, a cover of ice.
447. Eykt—the word is found in the early Christian laws—Kristinrett of Thorlak and Ketil, two bishops in Iceland—where it is defined as the time of the day when the sun has passed two parts of the south-west and the other third is left.
448. Dagmál, the early meal in Iceland, which is now from 8.30 A.M. to 9.00 A.M.
449. Probably Indians, as Esquimaux did not live so far south.
450. I.e., who had been left at the booths.
451. Evidently the Christian writer, abhorring the heathen people, attributed the plague to them and also the unnatural talk of the dead, which was, perhaps, invented by him.
452. Thorstein the Red was slain by the Scots about 888.