GunnLeif Merl I 63^VIII

‘Ríðr inn prúði         til Peritónis ár
hvítum hesti         hvatr ǫldurmaðr.
Ok hvítum þar         hann markar staf
aldrœnn yfir         ô kvernar hús.

‘Inn prúði, hvatr ǫldurmaðr, ríðr hvítum hesti til ár Peritónis. Ok hann, aldrœnn, markar þar hvítum staf hús kvernar yfir ô.

‘The splendid man, a bold lord, will ride a white horse to the river Periron. And there he, the aged [man], will mark out a mill-house above the river with a white staff.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Readings: [7] aldrœnn: aldrœn Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 30-1, Skj BII, 36-7, Skald II, 23; Bret 1848-9, II, 61 (Bret st. 131); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 176.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.108-10; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 19): Niueus quoque senex in niueo equo fluuium Perironis diuertet et cum candida uirga molendinum super ipsum metabitur ‘A snow-white old man on a snow-white horse will divert the river Periron and with a white rod measure out a mill on its bank’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). The Book of Llan Dav, c. 1150, locates Aper Periron not far from the town of Monmouth as a branch of the Cadlan (Curley 1982, 244, citing Williams 1955, xxxvi-xxxvii); some of the commentaries also place it near Monmouth (e.g. Hammer 1940, 419). The C10th Armes Prydein ‘The Prophecy of Britain’ describes a confrontation between the Welsh and the steward of an English king, possibly Æthelstan, at this location (Curley 1982, 225-6; Faletra 2008, 134). However, it is possible that Geoffrey is alluding by means of this anecdote about a snow-white old man to the rapid rise of the Cistercians, a monastic order distinguished by its members’ wearing of white robes. The order gained institutional definition with the Carta caritatis of Stephen Harding, confirmed by Pope Calixtus II in 1119 (Poole 1955, 187), and rapidly became very popular in England (Barrow 1956, 105). The earliest known reference to the adoption of white clothing by the Cistercians occurs in a letter of Peter the Venerable (1092/94–1156), abbot of Cluny, to Bernard of Clairvaux (Burton 2006, 10). The reference to a water mill may also be suggestive, as the typical Cistercian monastery straddled a mill-race, an artificial stream diverted from a nearby river to provide power for grain milling and other technologies as well as running water for domestic purposes (Hansen [n. d.], accessed 03/09/2015; cf. Bostan et al. 2012, 187; Woods 2005, 33). The Cistercians’ founding of Tintern Abbey, not far from Monmouth, occurred early enough for Geoffrey to have been able to allude to it in the separate Libellus Merlini as well as the subsequent DGB. — [1, 2] ríðr … til ‘rides … to’: Possibly a misinterpretation of divertet ‘will divert’ (applying to the course of the river). — [2] Peritónis ‘Periron’: This reading agrees with that of ms. R of the First Variant Version, viz. Peritonis for majority Perironis (Wright 1988, 105), but may be a case of coincident error, given that confusion of <r> and <t> is frequent. The form Perítónis is a Latin gen. (cf. léónis in I 57/7), and Gunnlaugr seems to have taken it over as a gen. of definition specifying the river denoted generically by the common noun ár (gen. case). — [4] ǫldurmaðr ‘lord’: This term, adopted from OE/Early ME ealdormann, aldormann (LP: ǫldurmaðr, but not noted by Hofmann 1955) or Middle Low German (AEW: ǫldurmaðr), occurs in later C12th skaldic poetry, notably Bjbp Jóms 11/2^I and Anon Pl 13/4^VII, evidently in the sense of ‘leader’; see Notes to those two locations. Gunnlaugr may have used it in awareness of English terminology, but it was also current in reference to Old Testament patriarchs (ONP: ǫldurmaðr) and was subsequently applied to Norwegian guild leaders (Fritzner: ǫldurmaðr), perhaps influenced by ME alderman. At some point it appears to have become associated with aldr ‘age, old age’ (ONP: ǫldurmaðr, citing Kolsrud 1952, 110): Prestbiter þyðiz olldur madr at voro máli. þviat hann skylldi sua vera at uiti ok uisdomi ‘Priest is translated as ǫldurmaðr in our language because he should be such in knowledge and wisdom’. Possibly this had already occurred at Gunnlaugr’s time. — [6, 7] hvítum staf ‘with a white staff’: See Note to I 47/3-4. — [7] aldrœnn ‘the aged [man]’: In this edn the adj. is taken as in apposition with hann ‘he’ and referring back to the man mentioned in the first helmingr. The emendation to –rœnn is minor, since geminate <n> is frequently not shown in Hb (Hb 1892-6, xliii). In previous eds the adj. is construed as n. pl., qualifying hús, also construed as n. pl.,  but this deviates from Geoffrey’s text, where it is the niveus ‘snow-white’ man who is described as ‘old’ (senex), not the mill-house, which in the logic of the passage is presumably not old, since it awaits construction, and is clearly sg., not pl.  

References

1. Bibliography
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3. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
4. 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.
5. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
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8. Hofmann, Dietrich. 1955. Nordisch-englische Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit. BA 14. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
9. 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.
10. Faletra, Michael A., ed. and trans. 2008. Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.
11. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
12. 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.
13. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
14. Poole, Austin Lane. 1955. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087-1216. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
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17. Burton, Janet. 2006. The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
19. Williams, Ifor, ed. 1955. Armes Prydein Vawr. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
20. Woods, Thomas E., Jr. 2005. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Washington, DC: Regnery.
21. Hansen, Roger D. [n. d.]. ‘Water Wheels’. WaterHistory.org. <http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/waterwheels/>
22. Hammer, Jacob. 1940. ‘A Commentary on the Prophetia Merlini (Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Book VII)’. Speculum 15, 409-31.
23. Internal references
24. 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)
25. Jonna Louis-Jensen and Tarrin Wills (eds) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Plácitusdrápa 13’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 190.
26. Emily Lethbridge (ed.) 2012, ‘Bjarni byskup Kolbeinsson, Jómsvíkingadrápa 11’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 968.