Þhorn Harkv 1I/6 — mey ‘girl’
Hlýði hringberendr, meðan ek frá Haraldi segi
odda íþróttir inum afarauðga.
Frá môlum mun ek segja, þeim es ek mey heyrða
hvíta haddbjarta, es við hrafn dœmði.
Hringberendr hlýði, meðan ek segi íþróttir odda frá Haraldi inum afarauðga. Ek mun segja frá môlum, þeim es ek heyrða hvíta, haddbjarta mey, es dœmði við hrafn.
Let sword-bearers [WARRIORS] listen, while I recount feats of weapon-points concerning Haraldr the exceedingly wealthy. I shall recount the words that I heard a white, bright-haired girl [utter] when she spoke with a raven.
notes
[6] þeim es ek heyrða ... mey ‘that I heard a ... girl’: This is elliptical, lacking an inf. of a verb of saying. (a) In the translation given here, segja (frá) of l. 5 is assumed to be supplied again in the next line, hence ‘recount … [utter]’ (so Ulset 1975, 27). (b) Skj B interprets the construction as ‘the words that I heard from a girl’, to which Kock (NN §1815) objects on the ground that mey cannot mean ‘from a girl’. (c) Kock assumes a mixed construction, in which dœma môlum ‘speak (in) words’ is conflated with ek heyrða mey, es dœmði ‘I heard a girl who spoke’, equivalent to ek heyrða, at mær dœmði ‘I heard that a girl spoke’. Note that es ‘when’ in l. 8 may instead mean ‘who’, while Kershaw (1922, 83) interprets it as ‘as, when’.