GunnLeif Merl I 29^VIII

‘Honum fulltingir         Fenrir sjóvar,
þeims Affríkar         útan fylgja.
Verðr kristnibrot         of kyni þjóðar;
þó munu sjalfir         síðar nøkkvi
enskir lýðir         allir skírask.

‘Fenrir sjóvar fulltingir honum, þeims Affríkar fylgja útan. Verðr kristnibrot of kyni þjóðar; þó munu sjalfir enskir lýðir allir skírask nøkkvi síðar.

‘The Fenrir <mythical wolf> of the sea, which Africans follow from overseas, will help it. There will be a breakdown of Christianity among the kindred of the people; yet the English people will themselves all be baptised somewhat later.

Mss: Hb(51r-v) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 25-6, Skj BII, 29-30, Skald II, 18; Bret 1848-9, II, 48 (Bret st. 97); Hb 1892-6, 279; Merl 2012, 148-9.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145.45-6; cf. Wright 1988, 102, prophecy 3): Sublimabit illum aequoreus lupus, quem Affricana nemora comitabuntur. Delebitur iterum religio ‘It [the Germanic worm] will be raised by a wolf from the sea, who will be accompanied by the forests of Africa. Religion will be destroyed again’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 144). The events prophesied here are narrated in DGB XI: the Saxons call for assistance from Gormundus, the king of the Africans, who has just subdued Ireland and therefore can be called the ‘wolf from the sea’; he brings an army composed of 160,000 Africans (J. S. Eysteinsson 1953-7, 100; for text see Reeve and Wright 2007, 256-7; on Geoffrey’s sources for the story of Gormundus see Tatlock 1950, 135-8). The first sentence is absent from some mss of DGB (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145) but must have been available to Gunnlaugr. Gunnlaugr rationalises the figurative ‘the forests of Africa’ and adds the idea that despite the breakdown of religion the English will in due course be baptised, as foreshadowed in DGB XI (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 258-9; J. S. Eysteinsson 1953-7, 100) and fully narrated in Bede HE I, 23-6 and Henry of Huntingdon HA Book III. — [1] honum ‘it’: The antecedent is orms ins hvíta ‘of the white snake’ (I 28/6). — [2] Fenrir ‘the Fenrir <mythical wolf>’: This is the mythical wolf, son of Loki and the giantess Angrboða,  especially associated with Ragnarǫk in Old Norse eschatology, where he fights against Óðinn and kills him (cf. SnE 2005, 25-7, 50). — [5] kristnibrot ‘a breakdown of Christianity’: A hap. leg. in poetry (LP: kristnibrot) and not cited by ONP.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
4. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
5. 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.
6. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. Eysteinsson, J. S. 1953-7. ‘The Relationship of Merlínússpá and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia’. SBVS 14, 95-112.
8. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
9. 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.
10. Tatlock, J. S. P. 1950. The Legendary History of Britain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
11. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
12. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
13. Internal references
14. 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)