GunnLeif Merl I 63VIII/7 — aldrœnn ‘the aged’
‘Ríðr inn prúði til Peritónis ár
hvítum hesti hvatr ǫldurmaðr.
Ok hvítum þar hann markar staf
aldrœnn yfir ô kvernar hús.
‘Inn prúði, hvatr ǫldurmaðr, ríðr hvítum hesti til ár Peritónis. Ok hann, aldrœnn, markar þar hvítum staf hús kvernar yfir ô.
‘The splendid man, a bold lord, will ride a white horse to the river Periron. And there he, the aged [man], will mark out a mill-house above the river with a white staff.
readings
[7] aldrœnn: aldrœn Hb
notes
[7] aldrœnn ‘the aged [man]’: In this edn the adj. is taken as in apposition with hann ‘he’ and referring back to the man mentioned in the first helmingr. The emendation to –rœnn is minor, since geminate <n> is frequently not shown in Hb (Hb 1892-6, xliii). In previous eds the adj. is construed as n. pl., qualifying hús, also construed as n. pl., but this deviates from Geoffrey’s text, where it is the niveus ‘snow-white’ man who is described as ‘old’ (senex), not the mill-house, which in the logic of the passage is presumably not old, since it awaits construction, and is clearly sg., not pl.