unz hrynsævar hræva
hund ǫl-Gefnar fundu
leiðiþír ok læva
lund ǫl-Gefnar bundu.
‘Þú skalt véltr, nema vélum,’
— vreiðr mælir svá — ‘leiðir
munstœrandi mæra
mey aptr, Loki, hapta.’
unz fundu hund hrynsævar hræva ǫl-Gefnar ok bundu leiðiþír ǫl-Gefnar, lund læva. ‘Þú skalt véltr, Loki,’ – vreiðr mælir svá – ‘nema leiðir aptr vélum mæra mey, munstœrandi hapta.’
until they found the hound of the roaring sea of corpses [BLOOD > WOLF] of the ale-Gefn <= Freyja> [WOMAN = Iðunn > = Loki] and bound the leading slave of ale-Gefn <= Freyja> [WOMAN = Iðunn > = Loki], the tree of deceits [MAN = Loki]. ‘You shall be harshly dealt with, Loki,’ – the angry one speaks thus – ‘unless you bring back by strategems the glorious girl, joy-increaser of the divine powers [= Iðunn].’
[8] hapta ‘of the divine powers’: A conjectural emendation, providing aðalhending with apt and a regular metrical line, first suggested by Finnur Jónsson (1884, 52-4) and adopted in Skj B, Skald and SnE 1998. Holtsmark (1949, 32) prefers Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s (SnE 1848-87) conjecture deyja ‘die’ (to rhyme with mey). Both R and Tˣ omit the final word of the line, and their exemplars probably did too, as the scribes do not indicate that anything has been omitted after the word ‘Loki’, and both mss go straight on to the first word of st. 12.