Cite as: Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 82’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1193.

Slíkt er svá; siklingr á — ǫld þess ann — orðróm þann.

Jarla er austan ver skatna skýrstr Skúli dýrstr.

Slíkt er svá; siklingr á þann orðróm; ǫld ann þess. Skúli, skýrstr skatna, er dýrstr jarla austan ver.

So it is; the ruler deserves that reputation; people grant [him] that. Skúli, the wisest of lords, is the most glorious of jarls east of the ocean.

Mss: R(52r), W(150) (SnE)

Readings: [4] orðróm: so W, ǫðrum R

Editions: Skj: Snorri Sturluson, 2. Háttatal 82: AII, 73, BII, 83, Skald II, 46, NN §2187; SnE 1848-87, I, 698-701, III, 131, SnE 1879-81, I, 13, 83, II, 30, SnE 1931, 248, SnE 2007, 34; Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, I, 53.

Context: This variant is called in minnsta runhenda ‘the least end-rhyme’, and the identical end-rhymes do not extend past the couplet. All lines are trisyllabic catalectic Type A-lines (i.e. structured similarly to Types A1 and A2 in kviðuháttr odd lines).

Notes: [All]: This metre is otherwise attested only in RvHbreiðm Hl 13-14, where it is called belgdrǫgur ‘bellows-drawings’. — [All]: The rubric in R is lxxv. — [3]: Þess ann lit. ‘that grant’ was originally written as one word in R (‘þesaɴ’), but a dot has been added above the <s> and a vertical line after <s> as a divider (R*). Ms. W has ‘þess an̄’. — [4] orðróm ‘reputation’: So W. Ǫðrum (dat. pl.) ‘others’ in R has been altered to orðróm (R*). — [5, 6]: The rhyme er ‘is’ : ver ‘ocean’ indicates that the -r in er (< es) has been rhotacised, yet Snorri did not consider the syllables er ‘is’: hyr- ‘fire’ as skothendingar (see Note to st. 58/1 above). — [5-8]: The wording of this helmingr is echoed in st. 94/7-8. — [6] austan ver ‘east of the ocean’: This shows that the poem was composed in Iceland. — [7] skýrstr skatna ‘the wisest of lords’: Following Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848-87, III), Kock (NN §2187) takes this attributive as a parallel construction to dýrstr jarla ‘most glorious of jarls’ (ll. 5, 8). The present edn follows Skj B and Konráð Gíslason (1895-7).