Note to Kálf Kátr 51VII
[4] †bernit†: This word has not been convincingly explained. Jón Þorkelsson (1888, 236) thinks that bernit (which is written with the er/ir-abbreviation in all three mss) is a corruption for í bernsku ‘in childhood’, and Sperber suggests the emendation of bernit to barnið ‘the child’. Accordingly, Sperber proposes the following reconstruction of ll. 1-4: [Uni] Kátrín, við óði mætum, | efnis glers, með söguna þessa, | Vítúlús gaf honum viðurheiti | vátes, barnið, nú er fráter. The prose order would be as follows: [Uni] Kátrín með söguna þessa; barnið efnis glers, Vítúlús, er nú fráter; gaf honum viðurheiti vátes við óði mætum ‘May Catherine rejoice in this story; the child of the material from which glass is made [STONE = Hallur], Vítulus, is now a monk; he was given the nickname vátes [poet] for the great poem’.