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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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Note to GunnLeif Merl I 55VIII

[All]: Cf. DGB 114 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.94-7; cf. Wright 1988, 104-5, prophecy 15): Euigilabunt regentis catuli et postpositis nemoribus infra moenia ciuitatum uenabuntur. Stragem non minimam ex obstantibus facient et linguas taurorum abscident. Colla rugientium onerabunt catenis ‘The cubs of the ruler will awake, leave the forests and hunt within city walls. They will do great slaughter among those who oppose them and cut out the tongues of bulls. They will load with chains the necks of those who roar’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). From this point onward, after the two preceding transitional stanzas, Geoffrey’s prophecies (and Gunnlaugr’s adaptation of them) have no historical or pseudo-historical referent but merely hint in vague and portentous language at possible future events affecting the British people, conceived on the basis of both the deep and the recent past. While it is possible that Gunnlaugr had knowledge from Henry of Huntingdon or William of Malmesbury concerning the Anarchy (i.e. the conflict between Stephen and Matilda for the crown of England following the death of Henry I), it is not reflected in his adaptation, but see I 56 Note to [All] for an indication that he took the reign of Henry II into account. Geoffrey appears to refer back in this prophecy to the catuli leonis ‘lion’s cubs’ of prophecy 11 (corresponding to I 52 in Gunnlaugr’s rendering). Merl paraphrases loosely here and, at least as extant, does not include a rendering of the final sentence of prophecy 15.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. 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.
  3. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

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