[8] vátta ‘bore witness’: Lit. ‘bears witness’. This verb is both pl. and pres. tense, where one would expect the pret. váttuðu. Kock (NN §1410) draws attention to a similar use of pres. tense where a pret. would be expected in st. 47/4 (and cf. er in l. 1 above’). The pl. usage with a sg. subject (djúp) can probably be explained, as Björn Magnússon Ólsen (FoGT 1884, 290 n. 5) has suggested, because the poet is thinking of two mighty abysses rather than one (and djúp n. can be either sg. or pl.). In the prose the verb kalla is also pl. with a sg. subject. Björn emended vátta to the 3rd pers. sg. pres. tense váttar.