[37]. Line 5 (or possibly line 4) may be spurious. Cf. Guthrunarkvitha I, 17, and Guthrunarkvitha II, 2.
[Prose]. Valhall, etc.: there is no indication as to where the annotator got this notion of Helgi’s sharing Othin’s rule. It is [[326]]most unlikely that such an idea ever found place in any of the Helgi poems, or at least in the earlier ones; probably it was a late development of the tradition in a period when Othin was no longer taken seriously.
[38]. This stanza apparently comes from an otherwise lost passage containing a contest of words between Helgi and Hunding; indeed the name of Hunding may have been substituted for another one beginning with “H,” and the stanza originally have had no connection with Helgi at all. The annotator inserts it here through an obvious misunderstanding, taking it to be Helgi’s application of the power conferred on him by Othin.
[39]. Here begins the final section (stanzas 39–50), wherein Sigrun visits the dead Helgi in his burial hill. Doom of the gods: the phrase “ragna rök” has been rather unfortunately Anglicized into the word “ragnarok” (the Norse term is not a proper name), [[327]]and rök, “doom,” has been confused with rökkr, “darkness,” and so translated “dusk of the Gods,” or “Götterdämmerung.”
[40]. In the manuscript most of this stanza is abbreviated to the first letters of the words.
[41]. Line 3 (or possibly line 2) may be spurious. Sword-tracks: wounds. One edition places stanza 48 after stanza 41, and another does the same with stanza 50. [[328]]
[43]. Possibly lines 5–6 are spurious, or part of a stanza the rest of which has been lost. It has also been suggested that two lines may have been lost after line 2, making a new stanza of lines 3–6. Kinsman: literally “son-in-law.”
[44]. Lines 4 and 6 have been marked by various editors as probably spurious. Others regard lines 1–2 as the beginning of a stanza the rest of which has been lost, or combine lines 5–6 with lines 5–6 of stanza 45 to make a new stanza. South-maid: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 17 and note.
[45]. Both lines 3–4 and lines 5–6 have been suspected by editors of being interpolated, and the loss of two lines has also been suggested. Brides: the plural here is perplexing. Gering insists that only Sigrun is meant, and translates the word as singular, but both “brides” and “loves” are uncompromisingly plural in [[329]]the text. Were the men of Helgi’s ghostly following likewise visited by their wives? The annotator may have thought so, for in the prose he mentions the “women” returning to the house, although, of course, this may refer simply to Sigrun and the maid.
[47]. Line 5 (or possibly line 4) may be interpolated.