Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1965, Page 42

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HALLDÓR HALLDÓRSSON
According to my view, the above mentioned strophe is so corrupt
in the manuscripts that all attempts to interpret it must be considered
as mere guesswork. Yet all scholars who have tried to interpret the
strophe maintain that the phrase hjarla drepr stall is to be found
there, although they come to this conclusion in different ways. What
we factually know is that the words drápu and stall are found in the
text, but we do not know whether they belong together. It is quite
possible that akarn is a prop word in a kenning meaning ‘heart’. Cf.
the 15th strophe in Háttalykill, which I shall mention below. Any
further discussion of the strophe seems to me useless. I cannot claim
to be able to interpret it. The question must therefore rest open,
whether the phrase we are studying is to be found there or not.
3) In Old Icelandic prose the phrase hjarta drepr stall is also
found. I shall mention two passages, the one from Heimskringla, the
other from Flateyjarbók:
En ef vér erum nú nqkkut skelfir, er helzt skulum vera for-
stjórar liðs várs, ok viljum vér eigi treysta herinn ok eggja ok
veita fyrirgqngu, þá mun þegar fjqlði hersins þat, er stall mun
hjarta drepa, ok því næst hverr sér ráðs leita.5
Þorkatli kom j hug at æigi væri vist at þeim munde uedr gefa
aliurn observationes miscellaneœ. Specimen seplimum ... scripsit Sculo Theo-
dori Thorlacius ... (Ilafniæ 1801); Finnur Jónsson, “Þórsdrápa Eilífs Goð-
rúnarsonar,” Oversigt over (let Kgl. danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhand-
linger, 1900. No. 5 (pp. 369—410); Ivar Lindquist, Norröna lovkváden fr&n
800-900-talet I (Lund 1929); E. A. Kock, Notationes Norroenae (Lund 1923—
44), especially III, 98—99, and XIV, 32; Konstantin Reichardt, “Die Thórs-
drápa des Eilífr Goðrúnarson: Textinterpretation,” PMLA LXIII (1948), 329
—391; Vilhelm Kiil, “Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa,” Arkiv jör nordisk filo-
logi LXXI (1956), 89—167, especially 129—130.
5 íslcnzk fornrit XXVII (Reykjavík 1945), 374. In the corresponding passage
of the separate saga of St. Olaf, most manuscripts, including the principal
manuscript (Sthm Perg. No. 2, 4to), have the same reading; see Saga Óláfs
konungs helga. Den store saga om Olav den hellige ... Utgitt ... av Oscar Al-
bert Johnson og Jón Helgason (Oslo 1941), 562, For a variant reading, see 6)
helow.