Note to GunnLeif Merl I 33VIII
[All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.52-3; cf. Wright 1988, 102, prophecy 4): Septem sceptrigeri perimentur, et unus eorum sanctificabitur ‘Seven sceptre-bearers will be killed, and one of them will become a saint’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 146). Gunnlaugr treats this sentence separately from its neighbours, which are covered in I 32. His translation is evidently based on the reading septem ‘seven’, not the variant octo ‘eight’ that occurs in the Π group of mss (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147); see Introduction. The prophecy refers to the death of S. Oswald, narrated in DGB XI (Reeve and Wright 2007, 272-3). Caduallo (variant spelling Cadwallon), king of Gwynedd in North Wales (rendered by Geoffrey as Venedotia) in the first third of the C7th, formed an alliance with Penda of Mercia to overthrow the Anglo-Saxon royal dynasty of Northumbria, but was defeated and killed by Oswald of Northumbria in 633. Oswald met his death at Penda’s hands in 641 (Stenton 1971, 80‑2).
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.
- Stenton, F. M. 1971. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.