Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 80 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 12)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 56.
‘Sofa þar í dimmu djúpi niðri
tvennir ormar tveim hellum í.
Þeir eru lindar lands ólíkir;
sék rauða seil rás ok hvíta.
‘Tvennir ormar sofa þar í dimmu djúpi niðri í tveim hellum. {Þeir lindar lands} eru ólíkir; sék {rauða ok hvíta seil rás}.
‘‘Two snakes sleep there in the dark depth down in two caves. Those girdles of the land [SNAKES] are unlike [one another]; I see a red and a white rope of the earth [SNAKE]. ’
Cf. DGB 108 and 111 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 141.573-4, cf. 145.25-6): et uidebis in fundo duos concauos lapides et in illis duos dracones dormientes … quorum unus erat albus et alius rubeus ‘and at the bottom you will see two hollow rocks with two dragons asleep in them …, one white, one red’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 140, cf. 144). Gunnlaugr interprets the ‘hollow rocks’ as caves. The decasyllabic version of the Anglo-Norman Verse Prophecies of Merlin also uses this interpretation (Blacker 2005, 80), but probably this agreement arises through independent anticipation of Prophecy 1 (see I 21 Note to [All]).
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.
Sofa þar idimmv divpi niðri tvenir ormar · tveimr hellvm í þeir erv lindar | landz vlikir se ek ravða seil rás ok hvita
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