Note to GunnLeif Merl I 28VIII
[All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145.43-4; cf. Wright 1988, 102, prophecy 3): Sex posteri eius sequentur sceptrum, sed post ipsos exsurget Germanicus uermis ‘His six successors will wield the sceptre, but after them the German [i.e. Germanic] worm will rise’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 144). The idea of ‘six’ is absent from Merl. The variant reading sed, for sex, is found in mss O and G (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145; cf. xlv and xlvii for identifications of these mss); Gunnlaugr’s copy-text may have been related to them, but polygenetic error is also thinkable (Reeve and Wright 2007, xviii). Equivalents of the term ‘sceptre’ do not occur in Merl (cf. I 33). In reckoning with an increase in territorial sway on the part of Arthur’s successors, Gunnlaugr may have drawn on the narrative in DGB XI (J. S. Eysteinsson 1953-7, 100; for text see Reeve and Wright 2007, 254-5).
References
- Bibliography
- Eysteinsson, J. S. 1953-7. ‘The Relationship of Merlínússpá and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia’. SBVS 14, 95-112.
- 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.