[5-6] alt it eystra ‘all the east’: Lit. ‘all the eastern [edge]’. An adverbial phrase, modifying fór ‘overran’, whose acc. object is jaðar ‘edge’. Bret 1848-9 paraphrases loosely here: over Öens hele östlige Bred ‘over the island’s entire eastern margin’ (similarly Skj B), obscuring the syntax. Cf. Merl I 73/7-8 for adverbial constructions with comp. and sup. adjectives of direction. Merl 2012 appears to presuppose movement towards the east rather than along the eastern side: fuhr … ganz nach Osten bis an den Rand der Insel ‘drove all the way to the east up to the edge of the island’.
References
- Bibliography
- Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
- Internal references
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 141 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 73)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 109.