SOURCE AND GENRE
Sigvatr Þórðarson, Flokkr um Erlingr Skjálgsson, stanza 8, Finnur Jónsson Carmina Scaldica (1929)
OLD NORSE
Drakk eigi ek drekku / dag þann, es mér sögðu / Erlings tál, at jólum / allglaðr, þess es réð Jaðri;
TRANSLATION
I was not at all glad as I drank at Jól on the day they told me of the betrayal of Erlingr, who ruled Jæren. The stanza continues that the killing makes the speaker lower the head previously carried higher.
DIRECTLY ATTESTED
In the edited skaldic stanza, a first-person speaker describes drinking at Jól on the day he heard of Erlingr Skjálgsson's death. The negation qualifies how gladly he drank (eigi … allglaðr), not necessarily whether any drinking happened. Judith Jesch, modern scholarly editor of Sigvatr's verses, has independently published the sense as “I did not drink my drink very happily … at Christmas”. Her public prose likewise explains the speaker as drinking while distressed. This evidence is first-person poetic testimony, not a recording of the drink's precise type or rite.
CONTEXTUAL
The death of Erlingr is dated 1028 in the Christian kingship conflicts of Óláfr Haraldsson's time. Sigvatr was a Christian-period court poet; the verse is transmitted through later kings'-saga compilations. Stanza numeration differs among presentations: 1929 Carmina Scaldica and Finnur's B I presentation treat the passage as st. 8; a 1904 Þórleifur Fjörutíu þættir excerpt numbers this line 10. The number 10 in that excerpt is not a new verse or independent event.
MY INTERPRETATION
This is especially early attributed testimony for drinking at Jól. It is stronger for an actual drink than the conditional vill jól drekka in JÓL-001; however the poem's reconstructed date and firsthand voice require normal caution about transmission, and poetic 'I' does not prove a universal observance.
NOT ESTABLISHED
Pagan religious drinking, blót, a dedicated god, a specific beverage, quantity or duration; a universal practice; an independently verified autograph composed in 1028; that the modern 2012 apparatus agrees in every orthographic and variant reading.
FIND IT YOURSELF
Actually consulted original-language edition: Finnur Jónsson (ed.), Carmina Scaldica: Udvalg af norske og islandske skjaldekvad (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gads Forlag, 1929), Sigvatr Þórðarson, Flokkr um Erlingr Skjalgsson, st. 8, https://www.heimskringla.no/wiki/Flokkr_um_Erl._Skj. . Scholarly explanation actually consulted, not a substitute for a critical apparatus: Judith Jesch, “Skaldic Yule” (28 December 2015), https://norseandviking.blogspot.com/2015/12/skaldic-yule.html (includes a normalized stanza and Jesch's own English interpretation). Also identified but NOT directly collated: Finnur Jónsson, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, B I (Copenhagen and Christiania: Gyldendal, 1912/1914 bibliographic imprint varies), p. 230, st. 8; Judith Jesch (ed.), “Sigvatr Þórðarson, Flokkr about Erlingr Skjálgsson,” in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings' Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), poem Erlfl, st. 8 (full chapter/page not personally opened). English: independent rendering of Finnur's checked verse informed by Jesch's public analysis, not copied from her critical edition. Source ledger: SL-034-A–C.
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CHRONOLOGIES
Represented: Erlingr's death in 1028 and the first-person retrospective response at Jól. Composition/testimony: Traditionally attributed to Sigvatr in the early eleventh century, much closer to the events than thirteenth-century saga prose. Witnesses: Later medieval textual transmission, not contemporary autograph; no manuscript images examined.
VARIANTS AND DEPENDENCIES
Actually consulted Finnur Jónsson's 1929 digital edited text, reading drekku; prior archive mentions drykkju in other normalized editions. Jesch's online interpretive text uses drykkju, confirming a genuine editorial spelling contrast; it is not evidence of a particular manuscript variant until apparatus is consulted. Jesch's 2012 critical edition is identified from the Skaldic Poetry project's bibliographic index but its full stanza apparatus and witness evidence were not directly examined. A poet's stanza quoted in more than one prose compilation is one poetic attestation, not several independent poems.