[1-4]: As Kock pointed out (NN §869), the helmingr is capable of various construals, since the verbs svíðr ‘flames, burns’ (l. 1) and eyðir ‘destroys’ (l. 3) could be read with either siklingr ‘prince’ or bjartr eldr ‘bright fire’ as their subject, while sem bráðast ‘with all haste’ is an apo koinou adverbial that could qualify either cl. Although svíða occurs with human subjects (LP and Fritzner: svíða), however, the pairing svíðr … bjartr eldr, and the arrangement of clauses shown above, seem the most likely.
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.