Each man lives | as his longing wills,—
Oddrun’s lament | is ended now.”
[[469]]
NOTES
[[470]]
[Prose]. Nothing further is known of Heithrek, Borgny or Vilmund. The annotator has added the name of Borgny’s father, but otherwise his material comes from the poem itself. Oddrun, sister of Atli and Brynhild, here appears as proficient in birth-runes (cf. Sigrdrifumol, 8). Regarding her love for Gunnar, Guthrun’s brother, and husband of her sister, Brynhild, cf. Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 57 and note.
[1]. Olden tales: this may be merely a stock phrase, or it may really mean that the poet found his story in oral prose tradition. Morningland: the poem’s geography is utterly obscure. “Morningland” is apparently identical with “Hunland” (stanza 4), and yet Oddrun is herself sister of the king of the Huns. Vigfusson tries to make “Mornaland” into “Morva land” and explain it as Moravia. Probably it means little more than a country lying vaguely in the East. With stanza 28 the confusion grows worse. [[471]]
[3]. Line 3 (cf. Völundarkvitha, 17) or line 5 (cf. Thrymskvitha, 2), both quoted from older poems, is probably spurious; the manuscript marks line 3 as the beginning of a new stanza.
[4]. Line 1 in the original appears to have lost its second half. In line 2 the word rendered “has happened” is doubtful. The manuscript does not indicate the speaker of lines 3–4, and a few editors assign them to Borgny herself.