Sannyrðum spenr sverða
snarr þiggjandi viggjar
barrhaddaða byrjar
biðkvôn und sik Þriðja.
Snarr þiggjandi viggjar byrjar spenr barrhaddaða biðkvôn Þriðja und sik sannyrðum sverða.
The swift receiver of the horse of the breeze [SHIP > SEAFARER] draws under himself the foliage-haired waiting wife of Þriði <= Óðinn> [= Jǫrð (jǫrð ‘earth’)] by means of true words of swords [BATTLE].
[3] ‑haddaða: ‘‑hoddaþa’ U
[3] barrhaddaða ‘foliage-haired’: Barr n. means both ‘barley’ and ‘pine-needles’. Finnur Jónsson (LP: barrhaddaðr) favours the latter, with reference to the dense evergreen forests of Norway (cf. Tindr’s Hákdr 7/7, 8I, which calls Norway mǫrk heiðins dóms ‘forest of heathendom’), but ‘barley’ would fit well with the fertility theme and is commoner in skaldic verse. Possibly the ambiguity is deliberate, as Davidson (1983, 502) and Dronke (1997, 413-14) suggest. The conceit of plants as the hair of the land is a common one, perhaps drawing on the myth of the primeval giant Ymir (Gylf, SnE 2005, 11-12; Grí 40). Ms. R’s meaningless ‘biarr’ is presumably a scribal error.