Note to GunnLeif Merl II 23^VIII

[All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.177-81; cf. Wright 1988, 109, prophecy 38): In tempore illo loquentur lapides et mare quo ad Galliam nauigatur infra breue spacium contrahetur. In utraque ripa audietur homo ab homine, et solidum insulae dilatabitur. Reuelabuntur occulta submarinorum, et Gallia prae timore tremebit ‘At that time stones will speak and the sea where one sails to France will become a narrow strait. Men on opposite shores will be within earshot and the island’s surface will grow larger. The secrets of the people beneath the sea will be revealed, and France will tremble in fear’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). Gunnlaugr appears to alter the sequence of ideas in DGB by associating the revelations concerning the submarini ‘people beneath the sea’ with the capacity of stones to speak rather than with the drying up of the English Channel. Through his re-use of the heiti verþjóð, Gunnlaugr clearly identifies Geoffrey’s submarini with the sea-people mentioned in II 12/8; they are presumably the Ruteni ‘Flemings’, who were frequently accused of machinations in respect of both trade and mercenary service.

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.