Note 21 — The Greenland Ballad of Atli

The manuscript does not indicate the speakers in this dialogue (stanzas 21–26). No gap is indicated after line 2. Most editors assume the loss of two lines or of a full stanza after stanza 21 giving Gunnar’s interpretation of Glaumvor’s dream, but the Volsungasaga gives no clue, as it does not mention this first dream at all. Grundtvig suggests as Gunnar’s answer: “Banners are gleaming, | since of gallows didst dream, / And wealth it must mean | that thou serpents didst watch.” Gods’ doom: an odd, and apparently mistaken, use of the phrase “ragna rök” (cf. Voluspo, introductory note).