Án Lv 5VIII (Án 5)/3 — haddaðar ‘haired’
Meyjar spurðu, er mik fundu,
hvíthaddaðar: ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’
En ek svaraða silki-Gunni
heldr hæðinni: ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’
Hvíthaddaðar meyjar spurðu, er mik fundu: ‘hvaðan komtu ferfaldr?’ En ek svaraða heldr hæðinni silki-Gunni: ‘hvaðan er logn úti?’
The fair-haired maidens asked, when they met me: ‘Where did you come from, fourfold?’ But I answered the rather mocking silk-Gunnr <valkyrie> [WOMAN]: ‘Where does the calm outside come from?’
readings
[3] ‑haddaðar: so 109a Iˣ, ‘haddaraðar’ 343a
notes
[3] hvíthaddaðar ‘fair-haired’: This reading from 109a Iˣ and other mss is certainly correct; 343a has hvíthaddaraðar. The form ‑haddaðr ‘-haired’ is attested in other virtually synonymous compounds, which are used as epithets of girls and young women: e.g. bjarthaddað man ‘bright-haired maiden’, Gríp 33/6 (NK 169), bjarthadduð brúðr ‘bright-haired woman’, GunnLeif Merl I 77/7-8 and brúðir bleikhaddaðar ‘pale-haired women’, Gestumbl Heiðr 17/1-2 (Heiðr 64). There is a particular similarity between the last-named riddle and the stanza from Án in that this stanza poses a question or questions, and the second question (ostensibly) concerns a natural phenomenon (logn, see Note to l. 8), as Gestumbl Heiðr 17 (the answer to the riddle is ‘swans’) and several other riddles in Heiðr do.