Anon (TGT) 28III/3 — hætt ‘a dangerous’
En skinnbjarta skortir
— skap kannask mér svanna —
— dýrs hon hætt at hváru —
hálmmein Njǫrun steina.
En skinnbjarta Njǫrun steina skortir hálmmein; skap svanna kannask mér; hon [e]s at hváru hætt dýr.
But the bright-skinned Njǫrun <goddess> of stones [WOMAN] lacks straw-harm [BLADE]; the temperament of the woman is known to me; she is in any case a dangerous animal.
notes
[3] hætt ‘dangerous’: Both Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884) and Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) take hætt with hálmmein/hállmeins, i.e. ‘dangerous fire’, but this creates a tripartite l. 3. — [3] hon [e]s … hætt dýr ‘she is … a dangerous animal’: This interpretation is implicit in Óláfr’s comments to this stanza (TGT 1927, 74): Hér er dýr kǫlluð konan ‘Here the woman is called an animal’. Without reference to the prose context, dýr could be understood as f. nom. sg. of dýrr adj. ‘expensive’, hence ‘she is dangerously expensive’ or ‘she is precious’ (without hætt), the interpretation adopted by some eds (TGT 1884; NN §1233B; Skj B).