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Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to stanza

1. 37. Sigvatr Þórðarson, 3. Austrfararvísur, 3 [Vol. 1, 587]

[3] menn of veit ‘people know’: The expression, lit. ‘people knows’, with numerical disagreement of subject and verb and a sense such as ‘to be sure’, is idiomatic: see CVC: maðr B. 2. The expression is considered a late intrusion in the text by Noreen (1923, 36, citing Konráð Gíslason 1892, 177). But the decidedly unheroic context suggests the possibility that Sigvatr was here reaching for a comic effect. He seems, somewhat comparably, not to have been averse to using innovative anglicisms: see the Notes to sts 16/2, 16/8 and 19/3.


