Fór heiman þá fljótt dratthali
og ætlar sier afla að fanga.
Fann skjótliga fimtán sauði
og einn af þeim allvel feitan.
Þá fór dratthali fljótt heiman og ætlar að fanga sier afla. Fann skjótliga fimtán sauði og einn af þeim allvel feitan.
Then Dragging-tail quickly set off from home and intends to procure provisions for himself. He soon found fifteen sheep and one of them [was] wonderfully fat.
[4] að fanga ‘to procure’: So Kölbing (1876), Jón Þorkelsson (1888; 1922-7) and Páll Eggert Ólason (1947). CPB construes this as atfanga (n. gen. pl.) ‘provisions’, as the object of afla ‘procure’, which is then taken as a verb (inf. with ætlar ‘intends’ l. 3), rather than as the noun afla (m. acc. pl.) ‘provisions’: og ætlar afla sier atfanga ‘and intends to procure provisions for himself’. That interpretation is unlikely because it results in two alliterating staves in an even line.