Ǫrt vas Ôleifs hjarta;
óð framm konungr — blóði
rekin bitu stôl — á Stiklar
stǫðum, kvaddi lið bǫðvar.
Élþolla sák alla
Jǫlfuðs nema gram sjalfan
— reyndr vas flestr í fastri
fleindrífu — sér hlífa.
Hjarta Ôleifs vas ǫrt; konungr óð framm á Stiklarstǫðum, kvaddi lið bǫðvar; stôl rekin blóði bitu. Sák alla Jǫlfuðs élþolla hlífa sér nema gram sjalfan; flestr vas reyndr í fastri fleindrífu.
Óláfr’s heart was energetic; the king pressed forward at Stiklestad, rallied his host to battle; steel weapons inlaid with blood bit. I saw all the firs of the storm of Jǫlfuðr <= Óðinn> [(lit. ‘storm-firs of Jǫlfuðr’) BATTLE > WARRIORS] shelter themselves except the leader himself; most were tested in the ceaseless missile-blizzard [BATTLE].
[3-4] á Stiklarstǫðum ‘at Stiklestad’: Gaertner (1907), Jón Helgason (1968, 48), and ÍS group this phrase with the intercalary clause rather than with the clause preceding it. Von See (1977b, 484) observes that if Þormóðr had actually composed this vísa so soon after the battle, it is unlikely that he would have referred to the p. n. by which the battle came to be known to history. However, it is conceivable that the stanza helped to determine the traditional name of the battle. As to the form of the name, variation between Stikla- and Stiklar- already occurs widely in the medieval mss, and hence also in modern normalisations. The conjectured derivation of the p. n. from a river-name *Stikl, perhaps ‘leaping one’, would suggest gen. sg. -ar as the original form, early reduced to -a- (Rygh et al. 1897-1936, XV, 122; Sandnes and Stemshaug 1990, 298).