Þjsk Lv 6I/4 — refilstíga ‘secret paths’
Hvarf inn hildardjarfi
— hvat varð af Þorgarði? —
villumaðr á velli
vígdjarfr refilstíga.
Farit hefr Gautr at grjóti
gunnelds inn fjǫlkunni;
síðan mun hann í helju
hvílask stund ok mílu.
Inn hildardjarfi villumaðr, vígdjarfr, hvarf refilstíga á velli; hvat varð af Þorgarði? Inn fjǫlkunni Gautr gunnelds hefr farit at grjóti; síðan mun hann hvílask í helju stund ok mílu.
The battle-bold false one, slaughter-bold, vanished on secret paths on the plain; what became of Þorgarðr? The sorcerous Gautr <= Óðinn> of war-flame [SWORD > WARRIOR] has gone into the ground; now he will linger in Hell for a while and a bit.
readings
[4] refilstíga: refils stíga 4867ˣ, 563aˣ
notes
[4] refilstíga ‘on secret paths’: This is taken here as acc. pl. used adverbially (so also Kock, NN §426). The sense ‘secret paths’ fits the context here and that in Gylf (SnE 2005, 7-8), where Gylfi arrives at the hall of the gods, incognito (as he thinks) and saying that he has come af refilstígum ‘from the trackless ways/secret paths’ (so Faulkes, SnE 2005, 132). The etymology and exact meaning of this rare cpd are unclear. In ModIcel. it means ‘wrong track’. De Vries (AEW: refill 3) associates refilstígar with the sea-king name Refill, which in turn is linked to refr m. ‘fox’. Janzén (1945, 187) suggests the refil- element is related to a Norw. dialect word meaning ‘tumble off’, whereas according to ÍO: refil- it is refill m. ‘strip’. Poole (2005b, 110) suggests ‘entrenched path, path along a shallow dip in the terrain’; he cites in support the word blóðrefill, which refers to the groove running the length of a sword-blade.