Þjóð Haustl 12III/2 — apt ‘recovered’
Heyrðak svá, þat síðan
sveik apt ása leiku
hugreynandi Hœnis
hauks flugbjalfa aukinn.
Ok lómhugaðr lagði
leikblaðs Reginn fjaðrar
ern at ǫglis barni
arnsúg faðir Mǫrnar.
Heyrðak svá, þat hugreynandi Hœnis, aukinn flugbjalfa hauks, síðan sveik apt leiku ása. Ok lómhugaðr faðir Mǫrnar, Reginn leikblaðs fjaðrar, lagði ern arnsúg at barni ǫglis.
I have heard thus, that the thought-trier of Hœnir [= Loki], strengthened with a hawk’s flight-skin [WINGS], afterwards recovered the playmate of the gods [= Iðunn] by trickery. And the deceit-minded father of Mǫrn <= Skaði> [= Þjazi], the Reginn <legendary smith> of the play-blade of the feather [WING > GIANT = Þjazi], directed a swift eagle-sucking at the hawk’s child [HAWK = Loki].
readings
notes
[2] apt: Lit. ‘back’. To be understood with the verb svíkja ‘trick, cheat’ in the sense ‘tricked back’, i.e. ‘recovered by trickery’. Both mss have ept, prep. ‘after’ (in sense of motion, with dat.) or ‘after’ in time, with acc. Ept does not fit the context here, so most eds have emended. Skj B and Skald emend to opt ‘often’ and understand l. 2 as an intercalary, emending the mss’ ása to ôsu and choosing R’s leikum to read sveik opt ôsu leikum ‘he [Loki] often betrayed the gods with his tricks’. They then emend flugbjalfa ‘flight-skin’ (l. 4) to fló bjalfa ‘flew [strengthened with a hawk’s] skin/form’ in order to provide a finite verb for the helmingr’s þat-clause. Such emendations are not necessary to achieve good sense, as Holtsmark (1949, 36) and Marold (1983, 166-7) have shown.