Anon Heildr 12VII/7 — andar ‘of the soul’
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.
notes
[7]: This l., as it stands in B, is unsatisfactory metrically and difficult in terms of sense; hinn er ‘that which’, referring to brunnr (l. 6), gives a l. in which alliteration falls on the unstressed rel. particle and the rhyme is imperfect. Kock (NN §1409) objects to this, and suggests emendation of sára to undir (acc. pl. of f. und ‘wound’), also emending vit ‘conscience’ (l. 8) to vítt ‘widely’. Finnur Jónsson, following Sveinbjörn Egilsson, deals with the problem by emending B’s ‘hin er’ to er ens and taking the next two words as a cpd andar-sára, reading it with vit ens andar-sára, as detailed in the previous Note.