SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
When this paraphrase of the verse is put beside Snorri's
narrative, it is difficult to see that the same events are
being described, although Konraf Gislason took it for
granted that Snorri understood the verse correctly and
knew that it dealt with two events: one in Scotland and
the other on the Isle of Man. Only in this way can
lcebrautar ldO refer to an island, and allr herr Skota varo
flceja mean "all the Scots fled". V aro flceja would scarcely
be used except where some special pressure was being
exerted, and would not be applied to the islanders, who
hear of the raids at a distance sufficient to allow them to
sail with all their valuables over to Scotland. The expression
can hardly apply to anything but flight from battle,
in which case herr Skota must be an army. I fail to see
how any acceptable interpretation of the verse is to be
found by supposing it to refer to two events, as Snorri
does. But if a single event is involved, the description of
the verse is quite explicit. Possibly the agent in it is one
and the same throughout, i.e. Haraldr Fairhair, so that
the kennings menfergir, Nioar varga lundr, and lpgois
eios boerrir all refer to him. In this case the verse would
tell us that Haraldr had many shields borne to the seasettlement
and (then) did battle on the sand, before the
army of the Scots was forced to flee before him. But the
account would be more natural if there were two agents
involved: Haraldr Fairhair, referred to by the two
kennings associated with the dignified epithets margspakr
and eljunpruor, and the seafarer - Nioar varga lundr ­
who is without any associated term of praise. The
sentence in parenthesis would then be an explanation of
why the king had many shields borne to the sea-settlement,
and in it the agent would be the seafarer, or Viking. My
exposition of the verse would be as follows: "The verywise,
generous king had many shields borne to the seasettlement
- (for) Vikings launched an assault on the
sand (i.e. attacked the coast) - before the whole Viking
army was forced to flee from the shore in face of the mighty