Note to Anon Leið 3VII
[4] vandan ‘awkward’: Finnur Jónsson translates vanskelige ‘difficult, awkward’, but Kock (NN §3137) objects to the interpretation of this term as pejorative, on the grounds that the poet speaks positively of his creation elsewhere (see, for example, 4/2, 43/7, 44). He suggests the meaning ‘wearisome, exhausting’ for vandan. That the poet does find his work wearisome is clear from 44/1-4, but Finnur’s interpretation is preferable here, as it seems to capture the parallelism between the slétt óðarlag ‘smooth poem-form’ that the Father and Son are asked to create in l. 2 and the vandan verk ‘awkward work’ for which the Holy Spirit is asked for help in the second cl.