Note to GunnLeif Merl II 15^VIII

[6] inn danski viðr ‘the Danish wood’: Possibly to be identified as the Forest of Dean, located in the western part of Gloucestershire (see CPB I, 156; Poole 1987, 276; Townend 1998, 29-31); cf. Ótt Knútdr 10/8^I and Note there. Geoffrey’s reference to this wood may reflect its status as the centre of iron-working to equip military expeditions (Poole 1955, 81-2). The reading danorum ‘of the Danes’ is found in the R ms. of the First Variant Version (Wright 1988, 108), as noted by Merl 2012; cf. the Anglo-Norman decasyllabic rendering (Blacker 2005, 44) les bois de Danemarche ‘the woods of Denmark’. But Gunnlaugr does not appear to be basing himself on R, which contains many erroneous readings not reflected by Merl, or indeed on the First Variant Version in general: see I 39 Note to [All]. He might have found the reading included as a variant in his source ms. (cf. I 41 Note to [All], II 25 Note to [All]) or instead have adapted Lat. daneum or a different variant reading such as danerium independently, perhaps aware of Óttarr svarti’s reference to a locality in England as Danaskógar (Ótt Knútdr 8/8^I). For an identification of this locality as the Forest of Dean see CPB I, 156, Poole (1987, 276). For interpretation of Latin place-names on Gunnlaugr’s part, cf. II 9 Note to [All].

References

1. Bibliography
2. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
3. Poole, Russell. 1987. ‘Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History: Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016’. Speculum 62, 265-98.
4. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
5. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
6. Poole, Austin Lane. 1955. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087-1216. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Blacker, Jean, ed. 2005. ‘The Anglo-Norman Verse Prophecies of Merlin’. Arthuriana 15, 1-125.
8. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
9. Internal references
10. Matthew Townend 2017, ‘(Biography of) Óttarr svarti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 335.
11. Matthew Townend (ed.) 2012, ‘Óttarr svarti, Knútsdrápa 10’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 779.
12. Matthew Townend (ed.) 2012, ‘Óttarr svarti, Knútsdrápa 8’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 777.