Anon (Vǫls) 6VIII (Vǫls 26)/1 — Sumir ‘Some’
Sumir viðfiska tóku, sumir vitnishræ skífðu,
sumir Guttormi gáfu gerahold
við mungáti ok marga hluti
aðra í tyfrum.
Sumir tóku viðfiska, sumir skífðu vitnishræ, sumir gáfu Guttormi gerahold við mungáti ok marga aðra hluti í tyfrum.
Some took wood fish [SNAKES], some sliced a wolf carcass, some gave Guttormr wolf flesh with small beer and many other things in magic potions.
notes
[All]: The first four lines of this stanza are clearly variants on the first four lines of Brot 4, given here in the edn of NK 198 as: Sumir úlf sviðo, | sumir orm sniðo, | sumir Gothormi | af gera deildo ‘Some roasted a wolf, some cut up a snake, some allotted pieces of wolf to Guttormr’. The following four lines of Brot 4 do not correspond to ll. 5-7 of the present stanza, which appears to be incomplete. The present stanza varies the referents ‘wolf’ and ‘snake’, given in Brot as the simplices úlfr and ormr respectively, by forming cpd nouns for the same referents, the first of which is a kenning. This suggests that the stanza in Vǫls may be an expanded variation on Brot 4, composed in skaldic style. The stanza has also undergone modification to skaldic metrical patterns, for the lines are actually in an approximate skaldic munnvǫrp with six metrical positions (ll. 1, 3 are Type C and l. 2 Type B), while l. 4 is hypometrical with suspended resolution in metrical positions 1-2 (similar to odd lines in kviðuháttr). ÍF Edd. II, 324-5 records this stanza in a note.