Note to Gamlkan Jóndr 4^VII

[1-2, 4] lát mik firðan hverju meini þvís ljónum granda ‘let me be removed from every hard evil which injures men’: In constructions introduced by the verb lata ‘let’ and containing passive forms the inf. of the modal verb (vera) is often omitted (cf. LP, 362), as it is here: lát mik [vera] firðan ... This construction can be translated more liberally as: ‘let me be cleansed of every harm ... which injures men’. However such verbs as firra ‘to remove’ are often construed with the dat. of ‘what is removed’ and with the acc. of the person, ‘from whom’ something is removed (cf. LP: firra); the passive construction lát mik [vera] firðan hverju meini thus corresponds to an active construction firra mik meini ‘to remove me from harm’, i.e. ‘to remove harm from me’. Since the st. is a plea for the preservation from the effects of sin (cf. the fear expressed in 4/5-8 that the speaker will be separated from God at death) and since the intercalary cl. síðan mætti ór of eydask / andar sár ‘may {our wounds of the soul} [SINS] then be wiped out’ [3-4] is an explicit wish to be cleansed of sin, it appears plausible that lát mik firðan meini should be translated ‘let every harm (= sin) be removed from me’.

References

1. Bibliography
2. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.