Vítt dró sínar sveitir
saman stórhugaðr Þórir
— heldr vôrut þau hauldum
haglig rôð — með Agli.
Snǫrp frák á, þvís urpu,
endr Skjalgs vinum, lendir
menn við morðvals brynni,
mein, of afl sér steini.
Stórhugaðr Þórir dró vítt saman sveitir sínar með Agli; þau rôð vôrut heldr haglig hauldum. Frák snǫrp mein vinum Skjalgs endr á, þvís lendir menn urpu steini of afl sér við brynni morðvals.
Great-spirited Þórir gathered his companies far and wide with Egill; those ventures were not very convenient for the freeholders. I heard that great harm formerly befell Skjálgr’s friends because the district chieftains threw a stone beyond their strength against the thirst-quencher of the strife-falcon [RAVEN/EAGLE > WARRIOR].
[5, 8] frák snǫrp mein … endr á ‘I heard that great harm … formerly befell’: Lit. ‘I heard that great harm … [was] present for’. Á lit. ‘on’ carries alliteration (and full stress) and is therefore used adverbially here, with the suppressed verb vera ‘be’. For the verb-adv. collocation vera á ‘be present’, see Fritzner: vera á. Skj B reads frák snǫrp mein á því (‘I heard that great harm [resulted] from it’) treating á as a prep. (á því ‘from it’; so also Skald; ÍF 28; ÍF 29). That reading is unlikely, because monosyllabic proclitic prepositions do not otherwise receive full stress.