Hi Birgit,
Finnur Jónsson, the great Icelandic expert on Old Norse poetry,
has Vo,luspó,, verse 1, line 8 as "þaus fre,mst of man."
(a comma after the vowels e and o, indicates a "hook" that
in Finnur's book has been printed *underneath* the vowel)
I do not really know why Finnur chose to write "of", if
the Mss. said "um". But the following dictionary entry
might perhaps give a clue:
"of" = preposition, which is later replaced by "um" and
sometimes by "yfir".
Finnur writes:
Hovedhåndskriftet af eddakvadene har fået navnet codex regius ...
codex regius er nr. 2365 4'o' i den gamle samling og består af
45 blade.
Best regards
Keth