Anon Heildr 12VII/3 — harðla ‘the very’
Sanndyggra, mátt, seggja
snjallr huggari, kallask
harðla traust ins hæsta
heiðgjöf konungs jöfra.
Eldr ert elsku mildrar
eilífr brunnr ok heilagr
hinn er, andar sára
einsmurning, vit hreinsar.
Snjallr huggari sanndyggra seggja, mátt kallask harðla traust heiðgjöf ins hæsta konungs jöfra. Ert eldr mildrar elsku, eilífr ok heilagr brunnr, hinn er hreinsar vit, einsmurning sára andar.
Wise comforter of truly faithful men, you can be called the very trusty honour-gift of the highest king of kings [= God]. You are the fire of gracious love, the everlasting and holy spring, which purifies the conscience, the unique unction of wounds of the soul.
readings
notes
[3] harðla ‘very’: The first part of the word, ‘hard’, is written at the end of 10r, l. 23 and may be incomplete. What is missing may be an adj. in the n. nom. sg., agreeing with n. traust ‘trust, shelter’ (l. 3), intensified by the prefix harð- ‘very, greatly’ etc. Skj B, Skald and Rydberg adopt Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s reconstruction to n. harðfengt ‘hardy, valiant’. They take the periphrasis for the Holy Spirit, harðfengt traust seggja ‘valiant shelter of men’ (ll. 3, 1) as parallel to snjallr huggari ‘wise comforter’ (l. 2). This edn follows the construction implied by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (1942, 144), assuming that the missing element of l. 3 is an adv. like harðla or harða (both meaning ‘very’). Einar (by implication) takes the addressee of the verse, the Holy Spirit, to be snjallr huggari sanndyggra seggja ‘wise comforter of truly faithful men’ and then construes harð(l)a traust heiðgjöf ens hæsta konungs jöfra ‘you may be called the very trusty honour-gift of the highest king of kings’, understanding traust as a strong adj. ‘strong, trusty’ in the f. sg. nom. This reading allows a much more straightforward w.o. to the helmingr and offers a direct translation of the Lat. donum Dei altissimi.