Hfr ErfÓl 27I/4 — mest ‘the greatest’
Fyrr mun heimr ok himnar,
hugreifum Ôleifi,
— hann vas mennskra manna
mest gótt — í tvau bresta,
áðr an glíkr at góðu
gœðingr muni fœðask;
kœns hafi Kristr inn hreini
konungs ǫnd ofar lǫndum.
Heimr ok himnar mun fyrr bresta í tvau, áðr an gœðingr glíkr hugreifum Ôleifi at góðu muni fœðask; hann vas mest gótt mennskra manna; hafi Kristr inn hreini ǫnd kœns konungs ofar lǫndum.
Earth and heavens will sooner split in two before a chieftain equal to glad-hearted Óláfr in goodness might be born; he was the greatest good among human beings; may the pure Christ keep the soul of the wise king high above the lands.
readings
[4] mest gótt: mestr fljótt Flat
notes
[3-4] hann vas mest gótt mennskra manna ‘he was the greatest good among human beings’: Jón Helgason (1975, 405) observes that this construction, with a predicate describing a human subject yet in the n. case (gótt ‘good’), lacks parallels in the skaldic corpus. Emendation to góðr (m. nom. sg.) is metrically possible but no ms. spelling hints at that reading. Jón suggests instead emending hann to a finite verb governing the dat. (e.g. lét ‘allowed’ or veitt ‘granted’), then construing ll. 2-4 as a unit: mest gótt mennskra manna vas hugreifum leifi veitt ‘the greatest good among human beings was granted [by God] to glad-hearted Óláfr’, possibly referring to martyrdom. However, the use of n. gótt to refer to a human finds some support in SnSt Ht 83/8III slíkt má skǫrung kalla ‘such [a one] must be called an outstanding person’, where slíkt refers to Skúli jarl.