Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 130 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 62)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 99.
‘En eptir þat óðals á vit
fara fráliga fyrðar brezkir.
Þó es illa áðr ært í landi;
eru ósáttar enskar þjóðir.
‘En brezkir fyrðar fara fráliga eptir þat á vit óðals. Þó es ært illa áðr í landi; enskar þjóðir eru ósáttar.
‘‘But the British people will go back swiftly after that to their ancestral land. Yet there has been a poor harvest previously in the land; the English peoples will be at odds with one another. ’
Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.107-8; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 19): Deinde reuertentur ciues in insulam; nam discidium alienigenarum orietur ‘Then the natives will return to the island; for strife will break out among the foreigners’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). Here Geoffrey seems to envisage a return by the Bretons (living in Armorica, across the English Channel), to the British Isles, taking advantage of discord among the English. Their initial migration to Brittany is alluded to in I 37. The idea of the poor harvest is added by Gunnlaugr; see Note to I 32/5-8.
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.
En eftir þat oðals avít fara fralega fyrðar bretzkir þo er illa aðr | ært ilandi erv vsattir enskar þioðir
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