Note 50 — The Greenland Ballad of Atli

The warrior: Atli. Thirty: perhaps an echo of the “thirty warriors” of Thjothrek (cf. Guthrunarkvitha III, 5). Subtracting the eighteen killed by Snævar, Solar and Orkning (stanza 49), and Vingi, killed by the whole company (stanza 38), we have eleven left, as Atli says, but this does not allow much for the exploits of Gunnar and Hogni, who, by this reckoning, seem to have killed nobody. The explanation probably is that lines 4–5 of stanza 49 are in bad shape.