Note to Bragi Troll 1III
[7] hagsmið bragar ‘skilled smith of poetry’: This is the reading of all mss except R, which has hagskíð, lit. ‘skilled ski’. The R scribe also wrote -skíð in l. 2, against all other mss’ ‑smið. The concept of the poet as a skilled craftsman was fundamental to skaldic self-image (cf. Clunies Ross 2005a, 84-91), just as that of the poet as recipient of Óðinn’s mead was, and, in this stanza, Bragi begins with the one and ends with the other, a powerful riposte to the troll-woman’s threat of death and cosmic destruction.