Note to Anon Phoenix 1III
[4]: Metrically, the line is a catalectic Type C, a type favoured in odd lines, though Suzuki (2014, 105 n. 82) finds 23 examples in even lines in the Poetic Edda, as opposed to 47 in odd. It should be noted that the corresponding words in the Old English passage (swā rēad gold) show the same structure, amounting to just three metrical positions. The inverted word order of gull rautt ‘gold red’ is best explained as poetic, probably adopted to place gull in the first lift of the line, the only proper alliterating position in an even line. By contrast, the reading swā rēad gold ‘like red gold’ in the Old English text is an arrangement acceptable in alliterative prose but not in poetry.