GunnLeif Merl II 45^VIII

‘Ok á sjalfan sik         síðan festir
léparðs hǫfuð         lofðungr at þat.
Ræðr hann lýðum         ok lofða fjǫlð;
þar þrýtr þessa         þengils sǫgu.

‘Ok lofðungr festir síðan hǫfuð léparðs á sik sjalfan at þat. Hann ræðr lýðum ok fjǫlð lofða; þar þrýtr sǫgu þessa þengils.

‘And with that the ruler will then fix a leopard’s head on himself. He will rule over peoples and a multitude of men; there is the end of this story of the king.

Mss: Hb(50r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 18, Skj BII, 19, Skald II, 12; Bret 1848-9, II, 31 (Bret st. 44); Hb 1892-6, 275; Merl 2012, 108-9.

Notes: [All]: For discussion of the stanza order see II 44 Note to [All]. Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 155.204; cf. Wright 1988, 110, prophecy 44): atque capite leonis coronabitur ‘and be crowned with a lion’s head’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 154). Having destroyed its rivals while in the semblance of a boar, the fox-king makes his final transformation – to a lion. — [3] léparðs ‘a leopard’s’: Geoffrey clearly specifies a lion but, in common with much medieval literature and heraldry, Gunnlaugr does not seem to distinguish lions from leopards consistently. In the Second-family Bestiary, from the later C12th, Pliny is cited as stating (Historia naturalis 8.17.42-3) that the lion mates with the female pard, or the pard with the lioness, and from each coupling degenerate young are created. It is this irregular union of lion and pard that was regarded as making the leopard a ‘bad lion’ (Clark 2006, 122-3 and n. 22). — [5-8]: The episode is rounded off in an approximation of saga style (Poole 2009a, 317).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
4. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
5. Reeve, Michael D., and Neil Wright. 2007. Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia regum Britanniae]. Woodbridge: Boydell.
6. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
7. Poole, Russell. 2009a. ‘In Quest of Saga Styles in Merlínússpá’. In Margrét Eggertsdóttir et al. 2009, 307-22.
8. Clark, Willene B. 2006. A Medieval Book of Beasts: the Second-family Bestiary. Commentary, Art, Text and Translation. Woodbridge: Boydell.
9. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
10. Internal references
11. 2017, ‘ Unattributed, Breta saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 38. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=125> (accessed 21 May 2024)