‘Munni hans,’ kvað mekt sönn,
‘mart lúkiz upp bjart;
tungan endi sinn saung,
og sjái fyst, hvað það má.’
Skýja laus skör ló;
skilja má, að kantil
Áve Máría upphaf
á var þar skráð þá.
‘Munni hans,’ kvað sönn mekt, ‘lúkiz mart upp bjart; tungan endi saung sinn, og sjái fyst, hvað það má.’ Laus skör skýja ló; má skilja, að kantil, Áve Máría upphaf, var þá skráð þar á.
‘Through his mouth,’ said the True Power, ‘much may be revealed brightly; the tongue ended its song, and let us first see, what that can do.’ The deceitful crowd of clouds [DEVILS] lied; one can discern that a song, Hail Mary, the beginning, was then written on it.
[5]: The last words in the l. (‘skv[…]lo’) are difficult to reconstruct. The last syllable must have a long vowel and rhyme with ský- ‘cloud-’. Skald suggests skuggsjá ‘mirror’ and construes it with skýjalaus ‘cloudless’ (skýjalaus skuggsjá ‘a spotless mirror’). The present reconstruction represents a modification of the reading proposed by Wrightson (see Note to ll. 5-6). Skýja ‘of the clouds’ is otherwise attested as a determinant in kennings for ‘God’ (see LP: ský), but ský can also be taken figuratively to mean ‘that which prevents one from seeing something’ (see Fritzner: ský 2), which would be an apt term for ‘devils’ (skör skýja ‘crowd of deceptions’).