Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2005, Blaðsíða 428
418
Michael Chesnutt
next line of A (B: raigar by anticipation of st. 25,3), the first word of the
stanza in B provides regular alliteration according to the Icelandic
norm.
(4) Doubtless also original is Bevus’s request to the porter at B, st. 27,3-
28,1 (punctuation added):
27.3 “Orlov gjev mær, go5i vinur,
27.4 å ganga her inn fyri harra mm [read tin as in A],
28,1 or5ini mmi å flidja fram!”
The sophisticated enjambment, clearly pointing to a literary source, has
been eliminated in A by putting in the porter’s mouth a couplet spoken
later by the emperor (compare A, st. 28,1-2 with st. 33,1-2).
(5) In st. 35,1 B has preserved the name Dålit (Bevers saga MS 7, ch.
4,6 Dalela-, for this name in Faroese see references in FK VII 174),
which A by aural corruption has transformed into tåli. Cederschiold al-
ready pointed out54 that the comparison of Bevus’s mother with the
Biblical figure is peculiar to the C/7 subredaction of the saga, and it
must by implication have been in Bevussrimur.
(6) For A, st. 41,4 nåduligt vår B has abbalda (!) ver. Both readings are
corrupt but behind B can be perceived the word ribbaldi ‘violent, reck-
less fellow’, which is used pejoratively of the hero in Bevers saga MS
7, ch. 4,38 (though there by the porter, here by the hero’s mother).
(7) Less certain is the corrupt expression oskan brast in A, st. 38,4,
where B has orkan brast ‘(his, i.e. the emperor’s) strength failed him’.
The substantive orka meaning ‘strength, energy’ appears in Faroese as
well as Icelandic dictionaries, but Hammershaimb’s informant may not
have understood it. A transcription error by Hammershaimb is of course
also a possibility.
Not demonstrably derived from Bevussrimur but certainly doser to the
Faroese ballad archetype is B’s rendering of st. 23,3-4 (readings in
parentheses are A’s variants to the preceding italicised words):
54 Gustaf Cederschiold (ed.), Fornsogur Sudrlanda (Lund 1884), ccxlviii.