Note to Anon Gyð 1^VII

[7] vífs ins hæsta ‘of the highest woman’: B is badly worn and a crack obscures the lower portion of the shaft of <f>. The shaft, however, has an angular upstroke and the bowed section appears to be made in one stroke, as is characteristic of the <f>-form used in B. Comparison with <g>-forms elsewhere confirms that the left side of this letter is not characteristically as straight as is the fragmentary shaft here. The edn therefore follows 399a-bˣ’s and BFJ’s vífs, sharing Finnur Jónsson’s assumption that some reference to the Virgin Mary (not unlikely in a poem relating to the conversion of a Jew) is intended. Skj B’s reconstruction of besta (l. 7), while making for an acceptable appellation for Mary ‘the best woman’, is not necessary here, as an earlier transcription (399a-bˣ) make it clear that hæsta was the original reading. Rydberg reads vífs as vegs, which he takes to be the first element in vegsemd ‘glory, honour’. He thus construes vilk víst ... segja ágæta rœða [sic] ok hæsta vegsemd ‘I will certainly ... tell a noble tale and the highest honour’. It seems likely that Rydberg’s reconstruction here is influenced by recollection of Has 30/3.

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. Internal references
4. Katrina Attwood (ed.) 2007, ‘Gamli kanóki, Harmsól 30’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 99.