GunnLeif Merl I 74^VIII

‘Sitr ept hilmi         hafr at lǫndum;
hans esat skilja         skap frá vífni.
Berr hann á hǫfði         horn ór gulli;
es skegg skata         skapat ór silfri.

‘Hafr sitr ept hilmi at lǫndum; skap hans esat skilja frá vífni. Hann berr á hǫfði horn ór gulli; skegg skata es skapat ór silfri.

‘A he-goat will preside over the lands after the king; his temperament cannot be separated from desire for women. He will bear on his head horns of gold; the leader’s beard will be formed from silver.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 32, Skj BII, 39, Skald II, 24; Bret 1848-9, II, 65 (Bret st. 142); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 186-7.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.118-51.119; cf. Wright 1988, 106, prophecy 22): Succedet hircus Venerii Castri, aurea habens cornua et argenteam barbam ‘The goat of the Fortress of Venus, with golden horns and a silver beard, will succeed him’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 148‑50). The reference to Venus in DGB is not taken up explicitly in Merl, at least as extant (cf. I 76 Note to [All]), but the concept of her castle is conveyed indirectly in the words kastra kvensemi ‘castles of desire for women’ (I 76/5-6). — [3-4]: The sense is that the king cannot be prevailed on (e.g. by his counsellors) to give up his predilection for women – an accusation frequently made against Henry I by churchmen and other contemporaries (see I 51 Note to [All]). Merl 2012 would instead modify the normally accepted ms. reading hans erat to hann sérat, translating er versteht es nicht ‘he does not understand it’, but the required sense of sjá seems to occur only in combination with prepositions (LP: séa; Fritzner: sjá).

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. 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.
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. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
7. 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.
8. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
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 17 May 2024)