Note to GunnLeif Merl II 17VIII
[1-2]: Emended by Scheving (followed by Bret 1848-9) from ms. ‘En sætaz svndi fagna’ (refreshed). The three-fold emendation here is necessary to create sense in an incoherent passage and fits well with DGB, which describes ships, i.e. their passengers, rejoicing in the augmentation of the see of St Davids through the addition of Winchester. The conjectured reading sæti ‘seats’ (i.e. ‘sees’), construed as pl. because of the pl. verb fagna ‘rejoice’, conforms admirably to this logic. Gunnlaugr uses sund ‘sea’ as a kenning determinant twice elsewhere (II 1/2, II 31/2, the latter in the ship-kenning sundraukn ‘the beasts of burden of the sea’); for the postulated second element dýr ‘animal’, cf. kjaldýr ‘keel beast’ (I 95/6). Skj B (followed by Skald and Merl 2012) emends to sætré ‘timbers of the sea [SHIPS]’, while retaining sundi, interpreted as ‘voyage’, and explains the whole clause as ‘the timbers of the sea [SHIPS] rejoice in the voyage’. But that fits poorly with DGB.
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.
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 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.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.