Felldi Vagn virða;
valði of nái stirða
hrafn inn hvassleiti;
hrundi á borð sveiti.
Þess réð þó dála
— þrymr vas hôr stála —
eyðis undglóða
Eirekr skip hrjóða.
Vagn felldi virða; inn hvassleiti hrafn valði of stirða nái; sveiti hrundi á borð. Eirekr réð þó hrjóða dála skip þess eyðis undglóða; þrymr stála vas hôr.
Vagn felled warriors; the sharp-eyed raven chose between stiff corpses; blood flowed onto the gunwale. Eiríkr managed nevertheless to clear completely the ship of that destroyer of wound-embers [SWORDS > WARRIOR = Vagn]; the din of steel weapons [BATTLE] was loud.
[5] Þess réð þó: so 54, Bb, þá réð þess 61, þat réð þó 53
[5] þó ‘nevertheless’: The mss differ over the order of the first three words in l. 5, and over the precise adv. used. Þó is preferred here as the reading of 54, Bb and 53, as against þá ‘then’ in 61 alone, and it is contextually more meaningful: despite the damage done by Vagn and the Jómsvíkingar, Eiríkr prevails. — [5, 8] réð þó hrjóða ‘managed nevertheless to clear’: The full sense ‘managed’ for réð is appropriate in context here, but the verb could alternatively be taken as a pleonastic auxiliary, as in st. 10/1.