Note to GunnLeif Merl II 25VIII
[All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.183-5; cf. Wright 1988, 109, prophecies 39 and 40): In culturas mortalium irruent et omnia grana messium deuorabunt. Sequetur fames populum atque dira mortalitas famem ‘They will fall upon men’s crops and eat all the grains of corn. The people will be afflicted by hunger and after that by a deadly plague’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). For grana ‘grains’ a variant reading is genera ‘kinds’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153, Wright 1988, 109) and the expansion of the Latin seen in Merl could be interpreted as an attempt to incorporate the sense of both readings by mentioning the different types of produce. Ms. D of the First Variant Version has genera in the main text and grana noted in the margin as a variant (Wright 1988, 109), and Gunnlaugr’s source ms. may have been similar in this respect.
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.