Afl gat ek ærit, uxu tjálgur,
langir leggir ok ljótt höfuð.
En hímaldi af hugsi sat,
fás forvitinn í fleti niðri.
Ek gat ærit afl, tjálgur uxu, langir leggir ok ljótt höfuð. En sat hímaldi af hugsi, forvitinn fás í fleti niðri.
I gained plenty of strength, my branches grew, long legs and ugly head. But I was a layabout lost in thought, curious about little down on the hall-floor.
[6] hugsi: ‘hagse’ 590b‑cˣ, hagli 152
[6] af hugsi ‘lost in thought’: Emendation from 590b-cˣ’s meaningless ‘hagse’ is required, while 152’s hagli ‘hail’ does not make sense in context, although some earlier commentators proposed a meaning of ‘on a bundle of straw’ from an emended á or at halga (cf. LP: hagli; LP (1860): hagall). The emendation to the indeclinable adj. hugsi ‘thoughtful, meditative’ has been adopted in LP, Skj B and in this edn, but Kock (NN §2612) argues for the otherwise unrecorded form afhagsi, which he claims means the same as úhagr ‘without talent, clumsy, awkward’.