Lofðungr gekk at Lakkar
— laut herr í gras — snerru.
Lofðungr gekk at snerru Lakkar; herr laut í gras.
The prince went to the onslaught of Hlǫkk <valkyrie> [BATTLE]; the army fell in the grass.
[1] Lakkar ‘of Hlǫkk <valkyrie>’: The removal of aspiration occurs in the substitution of Lakkar for Hlakkar (Hlǫkk, a valkyrie-name) to produce correct alliteration (TGT 1927, 46): Hér er lakkar sett fyrir hlakkar at kveðandi haldiz ‘Here Lakkar is used instead of Hlakkar so that the verse-form is preserved’, i.e. to achieve alliteration. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 177) suggests a Norwegian pronunciation, which Finnur Jónsson (TGT 1927, 93) uses to date the couplet to C12th. Initial h- was lost in Norwegian in the C12th in certain phonetic environments (cf. Seip 1955, 76), but the couplet may have been composed later than that.