Hvarf inn hildardjarfi
— hvat varð af Þorgarði? —
villumaðr á velli
vígdjarfr refilstíga.
Farit hefr Gautr at grjóti
gunnelds inn fjǫlkunni;
síðan mun hann í helju
hvílask stund ok mílu.
Inn hildardjarfi villumaðr, vígdjarfr, hvarf refilstíga á velli; hvat varð af Þorgarði? Inn fjǫlkunni Gautr gunnelds hefr farit at grjóti; síðan mun hann hvílask í helju stund ok mílu.
The battle-bold false one, slaughter-bold, vanished on secret paths on the plain; what became of Þorgarðr? The sorcerous Gautr <= Óðinn> of war-flame [SWORD > WARRIOR] has gone into the ground; now he will linger in Hell for a while and a bit.
[3] villumaðr ‘false one’: From villa f. ‘error, falsehood, going astray’. A note of Christian condemnation is probably present, as in the epithet fjǫlkunnr ‘sorcerous, magic-working’ in l. 6, and villumaðr usually means ‘heretic’, both in prose (CVC, Fritzner: villumaðr) and in its sole other skaldic instance (Anon Heil 10/4VII). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) took villumaðr refilstíga to mean vildman fra vildstierne ‘wild man from the wild paths’, and in LP: villumaðr suggested the sense ‘being which appears to be a man but is not’.