ǪrvOdd Ævdr 25VIII (Ǫrv 95)/6 — vissu ‘knew’
Sigldum síðan suðr með landi
tállaust skipum tveimr ok einu.
Væntu fengjar, þeir er fyrir vissu,
ef vér Elfarsker öll kannaðim.
Sigldum síðan suðr með landi tállaust tveimr ok einu skipum. Væntu fengjar, þeir er vissu fyrir, ef vér kannaðim öll Elfarsker.
We sailed then south along the coast without deceit with three ships. They who knew beforehand hoped for booty, if we explored all the Götaälv skerries.
readings
[6] vissu: so 471, 173ˣ, váru 343a
notes
[5-6]: These lines are unsatisfactory in some respect in all mss. This edn adopts 173ˣ’s væntu ‘they hoped for’, instead of 343a’s and 471’s væntum ‘we hoped for’ and then 471’s reading of l. 6. Ms. 343a’s reading of l. 6, þar er váru fyrir ‘where there was [were] any to be found’, adopted by Skj B, requires the pl. verb váru ‘were’ to be understood to refer back to fengjar ‘booty’ (l. 5), which is gen. sg. It is possible that the line in 343a has been corrupted by a scribe anticipating the similar l. 6 in the following stanza. Kock produces the lines væntu fengjar, | þeir’s fyrir váru ‘they who were at hand, hoped for booty’, which do not occur in any single ms., while Ǫrv 1888 has væntum fengjar, | [þar] er fyrir vissum ‘we hoped for booty, where we knew beforehand’, again not found in any ms.