Note to GunnLeif Merl I 44VIII
[1] grimmum ‘savage’: Emended in this edn from ms. gumnum ‘to men’ (not refreshed), which is retained in all previous eds. Bret 1848-9 and Skj B leave gumnum untranslated (despite a statement to the contrary regarding Skj B in Merl 2012) but appear to have construed it as an appositional expansion to fjǫtri lundar ‘the fetter of the grove [SNAKE]’; this, although advocated by Kock (NN §102), leads to an awkward discrepancy between pl. and sg. The other cases discussed by Kock are not syntactically parallel. Merl 2012 instead posits a double object but is obliged to add und ‘and’ to the translation (see Note to l. 1 above). The emendation grimmum is palaeographically straightforward and removes these difficulties. Gunnlaugr uses the adj. grimmr ‘savage’ and adv. grimmliga ‘savagely’ elsewhere (I 16/3, I 32/9, I 48/2, I 64/5, II 28/6) and it fits well with Geoffrey’s ascription of saeuicia ‘savagery’ to the white serpent in 112.39 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147). See Introduction for apparent errors in the Hb text.
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.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- 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.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.