Note 12 — The Poem of Harbarth

This stanza is hopelessly confused as to form, but none of the editorial rearrangements have materially altered the meaning. Doomed to die: the word “feigr” occurs constantly in the Old Norse poems and sagas; the idea of an inevitable but unknown fate seems to have been practically universal throughout the pre-Christian period. On the concealment of names from enemies, cf. Fafnismol, prose after stanza 1.