Note to Anon Leið 5VII
[6] vegskrýðendr ‘way-adorners’: Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) follows Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s suggestion (1844, 58 n. 2) that veg- m. ‘way, path’ should be emended to vigg- n. ‘horse, steed’, to give the man-kenning viggskrýðendr ‘horse-adorners’. Finnur extends this kenning by taking varrar (l. 5) as nom. pl. of m. vǫrr ‘pull of the oar, wash or wake left by a ship’, which is often used poetically for the sea. He thus forms the inverted man-kenning viggskrýðendr varrar ‘adorners of the horse of the wash’ [SHIP > MEN]. Although viggskrýðendr varrar would anticipate blakkskreytendr brautar borðs ‘decorators of the horse of the path of the plank’ in 8/3-4, B’s reading vegskrýðendr ‘way-adorners’ makes acceptable grammatical sense and is likely to be a man-kenning, given that the poem’s title gestures towards the familiar Christian figure of life as a journey, possibly a pilgrimage. Alternatively, veg- could have the sense of ‘honour’ in this cpd.