GunnLeif Merl II 11VIII/9 — man ‘the maiden’
‘Hon þá drekkr it dýra vatn,
ok máttr við þat magnask brúðar.
Berr hon í hœgri hendi sinni,
kynstór kona, Kolídónis skóg,
en í lófa man Lundúna borg.
‘Hon drekkr þá it dýra vatn, ok máttr brúðar magnask við þat. Hon, kynstór kona, berr skóg Kolídónis í hœgri hendi sinni, en man Lundúna borg í lófa.
‘She will then drink the precious water and the woman’s strength will increase with that. She, the woman of high lineage, will bear the forest of Colidon in her right hand and the maiden [will bear] the city of London in her palm.
notes
[9] man ‘the maiden’: The difficulties raised by this reading have not so far been satisfactorily resolved. This edn follows Kock (NN §1281; Skald) in retaining ms. man (not refreshed), construed as a noun, ‘maiden’, in parallel structure with kona ‘woman’ in l. 7; so too Merl 2012. For the syntax cf. Note to II 10/7. The reading man is also retained in Bret 1848-9, which translates l. 9 as i den hule Haand ‘in the cupped hand’, with a note explaining that this interpretation is prompted by the Latin. No such sense of man is attested (unless an otherwise unknown heiti for ‘hand’ from Lat. manus, Fr. main is to be posited), but a mention of the maiden’s left hand would indeed be expected, so as to complement that of her right hand, as presupposed by both the Latin and l. 5 of the present stanza. Skj B emends to mun, presumably understood as an auxiliary verb with assumed bera.