Ferr at foglum harri
— firar neyta vel skeyta —
— vôn á heiðar hœna
hnakkadytts — und bakka.
Þar verðr almr, es olmir
undlinns stafir finnask
— land verr lofðungr brandi —
lynghœsn, dreginn kyngjum.
Harri ferr at foglum und bakka; firar neyta skeyta vel; hœna heiðar á vôn hnakkadytts. Almr verðr kyngjum dreginn þar, es olmir stafir undlinns [ok] lynghœsn finnask; lofðungr verr land brandi.
The lord has gone to hunt birds beneath the slopes; men are using shooting-weapons well; the chicken of the heath [GAME BIRD] has expectations of a neck-blow. The bow is being frequently drawn, where the frenzied poles of the wound-serpent [SWORD > WARRIORS] [and] the heather-chicken [GAME BIRD] meet; the prince defends the land with his sword.
[6] finnask ‘meet’: Both Skj B and Skald emend to finna ‘find’, presumably on the grounds that the refl. form of the verb does not take an acc. object, giving a basic sense of ‘the warriors find the game-bird’. ÍF 34, 258 keeps the reading of both mss and construes the sentence somewhat awkwardly as ‘the warriors find for themselves a game-bird (to hunt)’. Bibire (1988, 239) also keeps the ms. reading but translates ‘where the frenzied staves of the wound-serpent ... meet grouse’. A further possibility is to construe the verb as reciprocal and olmir stafir undlinns and lynghœsn as parallel subjects, giving ‘the warriors [and] the game-bird meet’. This is the solution adopted here, while recognising that none is entirely satisfactory.