Gripla - 20.12.2008, Page 107

105HEARING VOICES
Suðr er, ok suðr er
eða hví skulum lengra?15
Þeir snúa nú þangat eptir Klaufa ok fara til þess, er þeir koma til
Steindyra, ok nam Klaufi þar staðar ok laust hǫfðinu á dyrrnar ok
mælti:
Hér er, ok hér er
hví skulum lengra?
(ÍF 9, 175–6; Svarfd 1966, 38–39).
They hear something making a noise on the roof, and a verse
came:
I sit on the house
I look for this
hence shall we
expect for our revenge.
Karl spoke: “The voice is very much like the one that our kinsman
Klaufi had, when we used to hear him, and it can be that he has
something important in mind. It occurs to me that this poem
signifies some great event, whether it has happened or will soon do
so’. Afterwards they went out fully armed intending to go over to
Hof. Then they saw a strange being, by no means little, south of the
hayfield, and it was Klaufi, holding his head in his hand. He
spoke:
It is southwards, and southwards
But why shall we further?
Then Karl and his men hastened after Klaufi and kept going until
they came to Steindyrr, where Klaufi stopped and knocked on the
door with his head and said:
15 The post-medieval manuscripts introduce elegant variation, and arguably improve the
sense, by reading svá skulum stefna ‘hence we shall go’ in the second line of this verse. They
are followed by Íslenzk fornrit and Skj B (II, 220). The reading of the medieval manuscript,
in which the two kviðlingar share the same second line, is followed here.