Poetry
The Lay of Hamdir
Hamðismál
Anonymous · 900
Opening lines
Spruttu á tái
tregnar íðir,
græti alfa
in glýstömu;
There sprang up on the threshold
grievous deeds,
the weeping of elves
that banishes joy;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from heimskringla.no
Synopsis
Guðrún urges her sons Hamðir and Sörli, born of another marriage, to avenge their half-sister Svanhildr, daughter of Sigurðr, whom her husband, the Gothic king Jörmunrekkr, had trampled under horses' hooves. On the way, the two brothers kill their half-brother Erpr, whose words they have misunderstood, then find Randvér hanging on the gallows and arrive at the king's hall. Warned of their coming, Jörmunrekkr boasts that he will have them hanged, and the fight begins.
Context
The poem, which the manuscript calls the ancient lay of Hamðir, occupies the last leaves of the Codex Regius and closes the Eddic poetry; it is among the oldest in the collection, a version of it probably existing in the early tenth century. It is in fornyrðislag, with a single stanza in ljóðaháttr. One stanza seems displaced and another partly corrupt, without the whole ceasing to be comprehensible. Svanhildr's vengeance is already reported by Jordanes in the sixth century, in another form, and Jörmunrekkr is the Ermanaric of the Goths.
Who it is for
Thirty-one stanzas, dense and elliptical; it is not always clear who is speaking, which the annotated editions note.
Prizes and reception
One of the oldest heroic poems of the Poetic Edda, in a bitter and laconic language.