Note to Herv Lv 16VIII (Heiðr 40)
[2] nema í hendr ‘take it in my hands’: Echoes l. 8 of the previous stanza. The agreement of the other mss on the sg. hönd ‘hand’ is not enough to go against the main ms. here, since in 2845 this is a direct repetition of its reading, hönd, in l. 8 of the previous stanza, a reading rejected in the present edn. Andrews (1920, 97-8), however, argues for the ‘poetic effect’ created (in R715ˣ only) by the use of the sg. form following the pl. in the previous stanza: ‘Hervǫr asserts her readiness to take it in one hand, answering not only the expressed doubt as to her courage, but also any possible implication as to her strength’.