Note to Arn Magndr 5II
[5] at ‘that’: (a) This, the reading of all mss except for Kˣ, produces a grammatically complicated structure, in which the second helmingr is a subordinate cl. amplifying því in þvís ylgjar angrtælir réð mæla ‘what the beguiler of the she-wolf’s grief did say’ (ll. 3-4). This being so, lézk ‘said’ is redundant: one would have expected a cl. meaning ‘that he would ...’ rather than one meaning ‘that he said he would ...’. It was doubtless this rather tangled construction which gave rise to the simpler secondary variant ok ‘and’ in Kˣ. As elsewhere, the awkwardness of the original is preserved in the translation. (b) If ok ‘and’ were the correct reading, the second helmingr would form a cl. co-ordinate with the cl. built around fylgði ‘matched, followed’ in the first helmingr. Lines 3-4 would be parenthetic.