Þhorn Harkv 23I/10 — dræpir ‘who deserve kicking’
‘At hundi elskar Andaðr ok heimsku drýgir
eyrnalausum ok jǫfur hlœgir.
Hinir eru ok aðrir, es of eld skulu
brennanda spôn bera;
logǫndum húfum hafa sér und linda drepit
hældræpir halir.’
‘Andaðr elskar at eyrnalausum hundi ok drýgir heimsku ok hlœgir jǫfur. Hinir eru ok aðrir, es skulu bera brennanda spôn of eld; hældræpir halir hafa drepit logǫndum húfum und linda sér.’
‘Andaðr fondles an earless dog, and he plays the fool and makes the king laugh. There are also others whose practice is to pass a burning wood-chip across a fire; those men who deserve kicking have tucked blazing caps under their belts.’
readings
[10] ‑dræpir: ‘‑dræipir’ 51ˣ, FskBˣ, 302ˣ
notes
[10] hældræpir ‘who deserve kicking’: Lit. ‘heel-strikable, worthy to be struck with the heel’. Sigfús Blöndal (1927-8) suggests a pun on the alternate meaning ‘reaching to the heels’ in conjunction with his proposal that the caps have comically long peaks or tassels. Flo (1902, 69) takes the word to mean ‘one who hops or dances on his heels’ and similarly Kershaw (1922, 87) translates ‘skipping’. ÍF 29, 64 adopts the reading heldræpir ‘who may be dispatched to death/the realm of the dead’ in the FskA transcripts and interprets it to mean réttdræpir, i.e. ‘who may be killed without legal offence’ (similarly Magerøy 1963, 86). This analysis was first proposed by Benedikt Gröndal, as reported by Sueti (1884, 32-3).