Note to GunnLeif Merl I 40VIII
[All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.63-4; cf. Wright 1988, 103, prophecy 6): Replebuntur iterum ortuli nostri alieno semine, et in extremitate stagni languebit rubeus ‘Our gardens will be filled again with foreign seed and the red dragon will languish at the pool’s edge’. This prophecy alludes to the restriction of British occupation to Wales, narrated in DGB XI (Reeve and Wright 2007, 280-1). Gunnlaugr replaces the symbolic pool with the literal island and appears to freely add the notion that the British king will gain little from his occupation of Wales, in a theme of land use and productivity that appears occasionally elsewhere; for other instances see Note to I 32/5-8. DGB speaks disparagingly about the British dynasties in Wales but does not address this specific point (Reeve and Wright 2007, 280-1).
References
- Bibliography
- 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.
- Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.