Note to Anon Heildr 12^VII

[3] harðla ‘very’: The first part of the word, ‘hard’, is written at the end of 10r, l. 23 and may be incomplete. What is missing may be an adj. in the n. nom. sg., agreeing with n. traust ‘trust, shelter’ (l. 3), intensified by the prefix harð- ‘very, greatly’ etc. Skj B, Skald and Rydberg adopt Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s reconstruction to n. harðfengt ‘hardy, valiant’. They take the periphrasis for the Holy Spirit, harðfengt traust seggja ‘valiant shelter of men’ (ll. 3, 1) as parallel to snjallr huggari ‘wise comforter’ (l. 2). This edn follows the construction implied by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (1942, 144), assuming that the missing element of l. 3 is an adv. like harðla or harða (both meaning ‘very’). Einar (by implication) takes the addressee of the verse, the Holy Spirit, to be snjallr huggari sanndyggra seggja ‘wise comforter of truly faithful men’ and then construes harð(l)a traust heiðgjöf ens hæsta konungs jöfra ‘you may be called the very trusty honour-gift of the highest king of kings’, understanding traust as a strong adj. ‘strong, trusty’ in the f. sg. nom. This reading allows a much more straightforward w.o. to the helmingr and offers a direct translation of the Lat. donum Dei altissimi.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. 1942. ‘Íslenzk sálmaþýðing frá 13. öld. Heilags anda vísur’. Skírnir 116, 140-50.