FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Sæmundur fróði, Snorri Sturluson, Blackwell, Joseph Andrew, and Thorpe, Benjamin
Source notes
[90] Herkia, the Erka or Helche of the German tradition, who here appears as a slave or servant, is, according to that tradition, the queen of Etzel or Atli, who did not marry Kreimhilt (Gudrun) until after her death. The falsification of the story, the pitiful subordinate part acted by Thiodrek, the perfect silence of all the other poems on this event, and the ordeal of the cauldron, sufficiently show that the poem is a later composition. P.E. Muller (II., p. 319) ascribes it to Sæmund himself.
[91] The iarknastein of the original was a milk-white opal.
[92] This punishment was known to the old Germans.