Note 83 — The Greenland Ballad of Atli

The manuscript marks line 3 as the beginning of a new stanza. Hniflung: the Volsungasaga says that “Hogni had a son who was called Hniflung,” but the name appears to be nothing more than the familiar “Niflung” applied in general to the sons of Gjuki and their people. On the spelling cf. note on stanza 44. This son of Hogni appears in later versions of the story. In the Thithrekssaga he is called Aldrian, and is begotten by Hogni the night before his death. Aldrian grows up and finally shuts Attila in a cave where he starves to death. The poet here has incorporated the idea, which finds no parallel in the Atlakvitha, without troubling himself to straighten out the chronology.