Note 14 — THE MYTH IN REGARD TO THE LOWER WORLD. (Part IV. Continued from Volume I.) (continued 3)
Rasmus Björn Anderson translation
Völuspa 23, Cod. Reg., says of Heid:
seid hon kuni, seid hon Leikin.
The letter u is in this manuscript used for both u and y (compare Bugge, Sæmund Edd., Preface x., xi.), and hence kuni may be read both kuni and kyni. The latter reading makes logical sense. Kyni is dative of kyn, a neuter noun, meaning something sorcerous, supernatural, a monster. Kynjamein and kynjasött mean diseases brought on by sorcery. Seid in both the above lines is past tense of the verb sida, and not in either one of them the noun seidr.
There was a sacred sorcery and an unholy one, according to the purpose for which it was practised, and according to the attending ceremonies. The object of the holy sorcery was to bring about something good either for the sorcerer or for others, or to find out the will of the gods and future things. The sorcery practised by Heidr is the unholy one, hated by the gods, and again and again forbidden in the laws, and this kind of sorcery is designated in Völuspa by the term sida kyni. Of a thing practised with improper means it is said that it is not kynja-lauss, kyn-free.
The reading in Cod. Hauk., seid hon hvars hon kunni, seid hon hugleikin, evidently has some "emendator" to thank for its existence who did not understand the passage and wished to substitute something easily understood for the obscure lines he thought he had found.