[8] vetrum ‘winters’: Years were usually measured in winters rather than summers in early Scandinavia, as in other Germanic cultures. Sumrum may have been chosen here by some scribes out of a false belief that the alliteration of ll. 7-8 was on <s> rather than <n>. The age of twelve (9+3) was considered the age of adulthood in early Scandinavia, though later medieval sources place it at sixteen (cf. Grg Ib, 22; Dennis et al. 1980-2000, II, 46).