Note 77 — The Greenland Ballad of Atli

The manuscript indicates no gap (lines 1–2), and most editions make a single line, despite the defective meter: “Thy sons hast thou lost | as thou never shouldst lose them.” The second part of line 2 is in the original identical with the second half of line 3 of stanza 80, and may perhaps have been inserted here by mistake. Skulls: it is possible that line 3 was borrowed from a poem belonging to the Völund tradition (cf. Völundarkvitha, 25 and 37), and the idea doubtless came from some such source, but probably the poet inserted it in a line of his own composition to give an added touch of horror. The Volsungasaga follows the Atlamol in including this incident.