Anon (Vǫls) 6VIII (Vǫls 26)/4 — gera ‘wolf’
Sumir viðfiska tóku, sumir vitnishræ skífðu,
sumir Guttormi gáfu gerahold
við mungáti ok marga hluti
aðra í tyfrum.
Sumir tóku viðfiska, sumir skífðu vitnishræ, sumir gáfu Guttormi gerahold við mungáti ok marga aðra hluti í tyfrum.
Some took wood fish [SNAKES], some sliced a wolf carcass, some gave Guttormr wolf flesh with small beer and many other things in magic potions.
notes
[2, 4] vitnishræ; gerahold ‘a wolf carcass; wolf flesh’: Each of these expressions is treated here as a noun cpd comprising a heiti for a wolf (vitnir, geri) in the gen. case followed by the nouns hræ ‘carrion’ and hold ‘flesh’. Both compounds are hap. leg. Vitnir ‘watcher, aware one’ occurs in eddic poetry only with reference to the wolf Fenrir (cf. Grí 19/1, 23/6, Vafþr 53/6), though there it does not seem to be a proper name; it is also found as a wolf-heiti in skaldic poetry (cf. Arn Magndr 15/5II). Geri ‘greedy’ is the name of one of Óðinn’s wolves according to Grí 19/1, but it can also be found as a wolf-heiti (cf. ÞjóðA Sex 31/1II).