GunnLeif Merl II 51VIII/6 — kǫld ‘cold’
‘Verðr á foldu,’ kvað inn fróði halr,
‘styrjǫld mikil, stórar ógnir,
víg ok vélar, vargǫld ok kǫld
hrími hvers konar hjǫrtu lýða.
‘Mikil styrjǫld verðr á foldu, stórar ógnir, víg ok vélar, vargǫld ok hjǫrtu lýða kǫld hrími hvers konar,’ kvað inn fróði halr.
‘A great war will come to pass on the earth, great terrors, battle and treacheries, the time of the wolf and hearts of men [will grow] cold with frost of every kind,’ said the wise man.
notes
[6, 8] hjǫrtu … kǫld ‘hearts … cold’: The interpretation here follows that implicit in Skj B, with the verb verða ‘will grow’ understood from verðr in l. 1, the adj. kǫld construed as nom. pl. from kaldr ‘cold’ qualifying the n. nom. pl. hjǫrtu ‘hearts’ and the noun hrími ‘with frost’ construed as an instr. dat. from hrím ‘frost’. Bret 1848-9 (also Merl 2012, presumably independently) appears to construe kǫld as an otherwise unattested noun ‘cold’, in parallel with vargǫld, etc., but that leads to deficient syntax, with hjǫrtu seemingly understood as a virtual dat. i Hjerter ‘in hearts’. Similarly Merl 2012 im Herzen ‘in hearts’, but there hrími is construed as the nom. of the weak m. noun corresponding to n. hrím.