Note to Anon Liðs 3I
[5-8]: The gallantry of the speaker and his comrades is contrasted with the inaction of the guardian. Such contrasts are characteristic of skaldic poetry (Perkins 1969, 96 n. 7). This helmingr is repeated in part in st. 9/5-8: rýðr eigi sá sveigir | sára lauk i ári ... gunnborðs ‘that brandisher of the battle-plank [SHIELD > WARRIOR] does not redden the leek of wounds [SWORD] in a hurry’. Finnur Jónsson in Skj regarded sts 3/5-8 and 9/5-8 as textual variants and considered st. 9/7-8 the more original version of the second couplet. But the partial repetition can better be explained as representing an informal refrain. The first occurrence stands near the opening of the flokkr and the other near its close, loosely corresponding to the placement of the first and last enunciations of the stef ‘refrain’ in the formal drápa.