Þat mælti mín móðir,
at mér skyldi kaupa
fley ok fagrar árar,
fara á brott með víkingum,
standa upp í stafni,
stýra dýrum knerri,
halda svá til hafnar
hǫggva mann ok annan,
That spoke my mother,
that to-me should to-buy
ship and beautiful oars,
to-go on away with vikings,
to-stand up in the-stem,
to-steer precious merchant-ship,
to-hold so to port/haven
to-strike/smite man and another,
My mother said this,
that for me should be bought
a ship and beautiful oars,
to go away with vikings,
to stand up in the stem,
to steer the precious merchant ship,
to hold course to a haven
to strike one man after another,
This poem has been made famous by the song adaptation used on the popular TV series “Vikings”. But the English “translation” they used in this song isn’t a very accurate translation of the original.
The original poem comes from Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, which describes the life of Egill Skallagrímsson. There is a section in the saga which describes Egill feeling cheated whilst playing a ball game aged seven, and in his anger, kills one of the older boys with an axe. Egil overhears a subsequent conversation between his parents and writes the poem as record.
Above, I’ve given the original old norse/old Icelandic version of the poem, a literal word-for-word translation, and also a more natural English version of the translation so you can see how it differs from the lyrics of the song:
“My mother told me”
Firstly, his mother didn’t say it to him. (In fact, the saga says quite specifically that he managed to overhear a conversation she had with someone else.)
“Someday I will buy”
Nor does it say that he should buy it, only that it be bought for him. There’s no indication of “one day”; although he was only a child at the time, the implication of the saga is more than it should be soon.
“Sail to distant shores”
Significantly, maybe, instead of just “sailing to distant shores”, the poem said that the ship should be used “to go away with vikings”.
“Stand up on the prow”
The poem refers to standing in the “stem” (“stafn”) of the boat. This is interpreted as “prow” in the song adaptation. But both ends of the boat are referred to as “stem”; the prow is the “fram-stafn” (“fore-stem”) and the stern is the “aptr-stafn” (“aft-stem”). Since the next line suggests he’s going to steer the ship, it would have to be the stern of the ship. (Viking-age ships were steered using a steering oar or “steer board” on the right-hand-side of the boat, from which we get the term “starboard”.)
“Galleys with good oars…
… Noble barque I steer”
There’s two different names used for ships in the poem: Firstly it says “fley” – a “fley” is a kind of swift-sailing ship. But this word is never used in prose, only in poetry, so it’s not 100% clear what type of ship it is. It is often used to refer to swift merchant ships, or it could be like a snekkja (so-called because of its “snake-like” movement in the water), which belongs to the “langskip” family of ships. Later, the poem refers to “knerri”, which is the dative form of “knǫrr”, a large merchant ship, kind of the opposite of a langskip. So neither of the ships mentioned are likely to be warships.
“Hew many foe-men”
In the last line, the song adaptation uses “hew”, which is written “hǫggva af” (ie “strike off”) in old norse. “hǫggva” literally means to strike with an edged tool. It can be used to mean “kill”, “behead”, “slaughter” (as in cattle), fell trees, cut grass etc.