Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 116 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 48)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 84.
‘Þá mun hann gjalda grimmra ráða;
es hans tíundat tálaukit kyn.
Verðr hann grœna grund at vinna,
ok hann upp frá því aldri ríkir.
Tekr hann svá fyr svik sárar hefnðir.
‘Þá mun hann gjalda grimmra ráða; tálaukit kyn hans es tíundat. Hann verðr at vinna grœna grund, ok hann ríkir aldri upp frá því. Svá tekr hann sárar hefnðir fyr svik.
‘‘Then he will pay for his savage actions; his treacherous kindred will be decimated. He will have to work the green earth and from that time onwards he will reign no more. Thus he will incur grievous retributions for his treachery. ’
Cf. DGB 113 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.75-6; cf. Wright 1988, 103, prophecy 9): et reliquiae generationis eius decimabuntur. Iugum perpetuae seruitutis ferent matremque suam ligonibus et aratris uulnerabunt ‘And the remnants of its generation will be decimated. They will bear the yoke of unending slavery and wound their mother with hoes and ploughs’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 146). Under the Conqueror’s rule the leading English landowners, both secular and ecclesiastical, were supplanted by Normans (Stenton 1971, 680-1). This subjugation of the English was a key element in what Curley (1982, 219) terms ‘the supposed progressive unfolding of the spes Britannorum’ (‘hope of the Britons’). Gunnlaugr tones down the maternal imagery and the notion of slavery but plays up the treachery of the white snake, i.e. the Saxon occupiers of Britain. — [6]: See Introduction for readings no longer visible in Hb that could be read by earlier eds.
Text is based on reconstruction from the base text and variant apparatus and may contain alternative spellings and other normalisations not visible in the manuscript text. Transcriptions may not have been checked and should not be cited.
‘Þá mun hann gjalda
grimmra ráða;
es hans tíundat
tálaukit kyn.
Verðr hann grœna
†[…]nna† ,
ok hann upp frá því
aldri ríkir.
Tekr hann svá fyr svik
sárar hefnðir.
Þa | man hann giallda grimra raða er hans tivndað talavkið kyn verðr hann grꝍna grvnd að vi | nna ok hann vpp fra þvi alldri rikir tekr hann sva fyrir svik sarar hefndir
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