Note to Forað Lv 4VIII (Ket 24)
[3] skálm †glotadrra skroptu† ‘[my] short sword …’: In both mss (343a, 471) which have ll. 1-4 of this stanza, the text of ll. 3-4 is corrupt. In l. 3 the forms ‘glotadrra’ (343a), ‘glamtadrar’ (471) and ‘skrumtu’ (471) cannot be identified as Old Norse words and 343a’s ‘skroptu’ must be emended to skrapti ‘it clattered’ (3rd pers. sg. pret. of skrapa) to make sense. The form glotadr- resembles the p. p. of glata ‘destroy’, glataðr, and also the agent noun glǫtuðr ‘destroyer’ derived from glata. Skj B and Skald emended l. 3 to read: skálm glamrandi skrapti, which Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) translates as mit sværd dinglede og klirrede ‘my sword swung to and fro and clattered’ and could be translated more literally as ‘my sword, making a noise, clattered’. It is unlikely, however, that there would be two verbal elements in the line, and, in conformity with all the other lines in this stanza (except for ll. 8-10), it seems possible that the last word in l. 3 is a p. n.