Note 53 — The Greenland Ballad of Atli

The manuscript does not name the speaker. The Volsungasaga gives the speech, in somewhat altered form, to Hogni: “Why speakest thou so? Thou wast the first to break peace; thou didst take my kinswoman and starved her in a prison, and murdered her and took her wealth; that was not kinglike; and laughable does it seem to me that thou talkest of thy sorrow, and good shall I find it that all goes ill with thee.” This presumably represents the correct form of the stanza, for nowhere else is it intimated that Atli killed Guthrun’s mother, Grimhild, nor is the niece elsewhere mentioned. Some editions make a separate stanza of lines 4–5, Grundtvig adding a line after line 3 and two more after line 5. Other editors are doubtful about the authenticity of either line 3 or line 5.