163.A seventeenth I know, so that seldom shall go
A maiden young from me;[1]
................
...............
164.Long these songs thou shalt, Loddfafnir,
Seek in vain to sing;
Yet good it were if thou mightest get them,
Well, if thou wouldst them learn,
Help, if thou hadst them.[2]
165.An eighteenth I know, that ne'er will I tell
To maiden or wife of man,—
The best is what none but one's self doth know,
So comes the end of the songs,—
Save only to her in whose arms I lie,
Or who else my sister is.[3]
- ↑ Some editors have combined these two lines with stanza 164. Others have assumed that the gap follows the first half-line, making "so that—from me" the end of the stanza.
- ↑ This stanza is almost certainly an interpolation, and seems to have been introduced after the list of charms and the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138) were combined in a single poem, for there is no other apparent excuse for the reference to Loddfafnir at this point. The words "if thou mightest get them" are a conjectural emendation.
- ↑ This stanza is almost totally obscure. The third and fourth lines look like interpolations.
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