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In his influential edition, Sigurður nordal explains how the manuscript
text came to be in r:
Á aldur 5. v. bendi orðmyndin jöður, sem ritari k hafi ekki skilið og
gert úr vitleysuna jódýr.35
[the word form jöður indicates the age of stanza 5 as the scribe of k
[that is, R] did not understand it and made out of it the nonsensical
jódýr.]
In the same vein, Lexicon Poeticum rejected the ‘meaningless’ manuscript
readings and only provided an entry for the emended text:
himinjǫðurr, m, himmelrand, horisont, vsp 5; således er ordet
ganske sikkert at opfatte (ioður H, iodyr R, hvilken skrivemåde
rimeligvis beror på, at i skriverens tid var formen jǫðurr gået af
brug; jaðarr var den alm. form.; hvis ikke u her rent tilfældig er
erstattet af y; jódýr eller jódyrr er meningsløst).36
[himinjǫðurr, m., sky-edge, horizon, Vsp 5.; the word is quite cer-
tainly to be understood thus (ioður H, iodyr r, which is the most
likely spelling due to the fact that, at the time the scribe was writ-
ing, the form jǫðurr had gone out of use; jaðarr was the usual form;
unless u here is purely accidental in place of y; jódýr or jódyrr are
meaningless).]
once widely accepted, the emended text was made canonical by textual
practice. Editions which are more likely to be used in academic research
– Neckel and kuhn’s and jón Helgason’s editions – have the line um
himiniǫður with textual notes which inform the reader that himin- is ‘omit-
ted’ in H and thus imply that the element himin- was originally in the H
version of the poem (as stated previously, the line in H reads of jöður).37
While ursula Dronke does not follow the formula ‘omitted in H’, it is
35 Völuspá, ed. Nordal, 56.
36 sveinbjörn egilsson and Finnur jónsson, Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis:
Ordbog over det norsk–islandske skjaldesprog, 2nd edn. (Copenhagen: Lynge & Søn, 1931).
37 Quinn, ‘Editing the Edda’, 79; Edda, ed. Neckel and kuhn, 2; Eddadigte, vol. 1, Vǫluspá.
Háva mál, ed. jón Helgason, 2nd edn. (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1955), 2.
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