‘En it horska dýr hlezk aldini
harðla góðu, þvís hilmir velr.
Koma foglar þar fljúgandi til
af viðum víða vitja epla.
‘En it horska dýr hlezk harðla góðu aldini, þvís hilmir velr. Foglar koma þar fljúgandi til, víða af viðum, vitja epla.
‘And the wise beast will load himself with very good fruit, which the king selects. There birds will come flying up, far and wide from the woods, to visit the apples.
[2] hlezk ... aldini ‘will load himself … with fruit’: Merl 2012 seeks a source for this motif in the Physiologus (Curley 2009, 24), which describes the hedgehog as collecting food for his young by rolling in fallen grapes so that they are skewered by his quills; to be noted, though, is that the fruit collected by the hedgehog-king is identified in DGB and, following him, Merl, as apples.