7. _Better than fighting_, etc. The incident of a _boy_ playing too roughly with his companions and being told by them to go and avenge his father instead of maltreating them is very widespread. Prof. Ker notes its occurrence (_On the History of the Ballads_ 1100-1500, p. 194) in the Irish Romance of Maelduin, in four Norwegian, five Faroese, two or three Danish ballads, in a Literary History of the Arabs and in New Guinea. 8. _Water she cast_, etc. The passage is obscure. It is not clear if Hervik had actually been fighting with the 'lads,' so that the cleansing of her armour was an actual necessity; or if she had only been playing rather roughly. _Leika_ can mean both 'to play' and 'to fight'; and _leikvˆllr_ may mean both a 'playground' and a 'battlefield.' If Hervik had only been playing, the throwing of the water on the armour was possibly a rite performed before undertaking vengeance. 9. _Die on straw._ To 'die on straw' is the regular idiom in Faroese and Icelandic for to 'die in one's bed,' of old age or sickness, as opposed to death by the sword. 10. _Isan's Grove._ Hammershaimb suggests that by _Isan's Land_ here and in vv. 20 and 21 below the Faroese mean _Sams¯_. On the other hand there was a forest in Holstein in ancient times called _Isarnho_, and some such name may possibly be preserved here. There was a King _Isung_ mentioned in the Danish Ballad _De vare syv og syvsindstyve_, as an opponent of King _Didrik_; but it is improbable that his land is here indicated. 13. _She drew a shirt from out the chest_, etc.--a common ballad motif. A verse almost identical with this is to be found in the _KvÊi of Regin the Smith_, v. 47. 14. _Up then rose Hervik_, etc. vv. 14, 15, 16 and 20 are identical with vv. 12-16 (inclusive) of _Olufu KvÊi_, the only change being that 'Hugin the King' takes the place of 'Hervik the Earl's daughter.' They are practically identical too with the _KvÊi of the JÛmsvÌkingar_, vv. 6-8 (inclusive). Cf. also _Sjurar KvÊi_ (III _Hˆgna T·ttur_, vv. 46-49), and _Ragnarlikkja_, vv. 40-48. 20. _Striped gold on a scarlet ground._ The text has _Gull vi reyan brand_, which is probably a mishearing of the line _Gull vi reyan rand_ ('with a gold stripe on a red ground'). Verse 39 of _Br˙sajˆkils KvÊi_ (which is otherwise identical with the above) gives in the second line _Gull vi r·um brann_ ('gold blazed on the yardarms'). In Hammershaimb's version of our ballad, vv. 10, 72, the line is _Gulli vovin vi rand_ ('woven with gold in stripes'), as also in v. 22 of the _KvÊi of Ormar Torolvsson_. The line also occurs in the form _Gull vi v·gum rann_ ('the margin of the ship was gold down to where it touched the waves'). This is no doubt corrupt, but it is difficult to conjecture as to which of all the variants was the original form of the line.