Ólhv Frag 9III/3 — gat ‘was’
Vǫndrs Máría mynduð
(meins en eplit hreina
endr gat) Jesse kindar
(alls grœðari kallask).
Máría [e]s mynduð vǫndr kindar Jesse, en grœðari alls meins gat endr kallask eplit hreina.
Mary is symbolised by the branch of Jesse’s kin, and the healer of all evil [= Christ] was once called the pure apple.
readings
notes
[3] kindar Jesse ‘of Jesse’s kin’: Cf. Rom. XV.12 erit radix Iesse ‘he will be the root of Jesse’. Jesse was the father of King David and an ancestor of Christ. — [3] gat endr ‘was once’: It is very difficult to make sense of the mss’ reading endr at ‘again/once at/to’ here. Björn Magnússon Ólsen (TGT 1884, 237), followed by Skj B, emends to andar, creating a kenning for ‘sin’, reading: en grœðari alls meins andar kallask eplit hreina kindar Jesse ‘and the healer of all injury of the soul [SIN > = Christ] is called the pure apple of Jesse’s kin’. The present emendation was proposed by Louis-Jensen (1981) and is more conservative than Björn’s, retaining endr and adding one letter to at. Additionally it provides an appropriate example of paradigma in the parallel of er mynduð ‘is (metaphorically) represented’ and gat kallask ‘was called’.