NOTES
[[371]]
[Prose]. The prose follows the concluding prose passage of the Reginsmol without any interruption; the heading “Of Fafnir’s Death” is written in the manuscript very faintly just before stanza 1. Gnitaheith: cf. Gripisspo, 11 and note. Fafnir: Regin’s brother: cf. Reginsmol, prose after stanza 14. Venom: in the Volsungasaga [[372]]it was the blood, and not the venom, that poured down on Sigurth’s head. Sigurth was much worried about this danger, and before he dug the trench asked Regin what would happen if the dragon’s blood overcame him. Regin thereupon taunted him with cowardice (Sigurth refers to this taunt in stanza 30, but the stanza embodying it has disappeared). After Sigurth had dug his trench, an old man (Othin, of course) appeared and advised him to dig other trenches to carry off the blood, which he did, thereby escaping harm.
[1]. The first line in the original, as here, is unusually long, but dramatically very effective on that account.
[3]. The names of the speakers do not appear in the manuscript, though they seem originally to have been indicated in the [[373]]margin for stanzas 3–30. The last two lines of stanza 3 are missing in the manuscript, with no gap indicated, but the Volsungasaga prose paraphrase indicates that something was omitted, and the lines here given are conjecturally reconstructed from this paraphrase.
[4]. The manuscript marks line 3 as the beginning of a stanza.
[5]. Line 4, utterly obscure in the manuscript, is guesswork. [[374]]
[7]. Fafnir here refers to the fact that Hjordis, mother of the still unborn Sigurth, was captured by Alf after Sigmund’s death; cf. Fra Dautha Sinfjotla, note.
[11]. Stanzas 11–15 are probably interpolated, and come from [[375]]a poem similar to Vafthruthnismol. The headland: Fafnir is apparently quoting proverbs; this one seems to mean that disaster (“the fate of the Norns”) awaits when one rounds the first headland (i.e., at the beginning of life’s voyage, in youth). The third line is a commentary on obstinate rashness. The Volsungasaga paraphrases stanzas 11–15 throughout.