Anon (LaufE) 4III/3 — hjálmklæðum ‘to helmet-clothes’
Land verr lofðungr brǫndum
lauks máferils hauka;
hjálmklæðum gefr hilmir
hvítinga frið lítinn.
Lofðungr lauks verr land hauka brǫndum máferils; hilmir hvítinga gefr hjálmklæðum lítinn frið.
The lord of the leek [WOMAN] adorns the land of hawks [ARM] with fires of the seagull-track [SEA > GOLD]; the ruler of drinking-horns [WOMAN] gives little peace to helmet-clothes.
notes
[3] hjálmklæðum ‘to helmet-clothes’: It is unclear what is meant here. Finnur Jónsson (LP: hjalmklæði) tentatively suggests that it may refer to a woman’s headdresses, in the sense that she uses them frequently (so also Skj B) or, alternatively, that hjálm could be related to Norw.(?) hjelm ‘appearance’. The word is otherwise attested once in the corpus of Old Norse prose, but the meaning is uncertain. Fritzner: hjalmklæði suggests noget til en Kirkes Inventarium henhørende, uvist hvilket ‘something that belongs to the inventory of a church, exactly what is unknown’, and Heggstad et al. 2008: hjalmklæði speculate that it could have been a protective cloth that was used to cover a chandelier (kertihjálmr). If that is correct, the word could have been chosen here because of its ambiguity.