GunnLeif Merl II 10^VIII

‘Tekr hon at reyna         ok at ráða fjǫlð;
tekr hon íþróttir         allar fremja.
Andar síðan         snót á brunna,
ok brúðr þurra         báða gervir.

‘Hon tekr at reyna ok at ráða fjǫlð; hon tekr fremja allar íþróttir. Snót andar síðan á brunna, ok brúðr gervir báða þurra.

‘She will start to test and devise a great many [remedies]; she will start practising all her arts. Then the woman will breathe on the springs and the lady will make them both dry.

Mss: Hb(49r) (Bret)

Readings: [7] ok brúðr þurra: ‘ok hon brúðþurra’ Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 12, Skj BII, 12, Skald II, 7; Bret 1848-9, II, 17 (Bret st. 10); Hb 1892-6, 272; Merl 2012, 75-6. 

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 151.156-7; cf. Wright 1988, 108, prophecy 32): Quae ut omnes artes inierit, solo anhelitu suo fontes nociuos siccabit ‘After she has tried all her arts, she will dry up the deadly springs with her breath alone’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 150). — [1] reyna ‘to test’: This reading and gloss are accepted by all eds but LP: reyna 3 glosses as tyde ‘interpret’ (contrast Skj B’s prøve ‘test’) and suggests that the reading may have arisen in error for rýna ‘enquire (into), investigate’. But emendation (or re-interpretation of the ms. reading) is not called for, inasmuch as in ll. 1-2 Gunnlaugr appears to amplify the idea in DGB that the woman is trying all her arts, i.e. those of healing, as requested by the inhabitants of Winchester, rather than enquiring into the causes of the crisis. — [3] hon ‘she’: Omitted in Skald. — [3] íþróttir ‘arts’: The word is used here, as repeatedly in Hsv^VII, to mean not ‘feats’ or ‘accomplishments’, in the sense of something to be exhibited, as in older skaldic poetry, but rather ‘useful skills’. — [7] ok brúðr … þurra ‘and the lady … dry’: Emended in this edn from ms. ‘ok hon brvðþurra’ (not refreshed). This emendation assumes two heiti for ‘woman’, snót in l. 6 and brúðr in l. 7, referring to the same person in coordinate clauses, rather than the f. pron. hon ‘she’ at the second mention. However, departures from expected (prose) usage on this point are paralleled in skaldic poetry including Gunnlaugr’s own: cf. the coordinate clauses in II 11/1-4, where hon ‘she’ is used in the first clause and brúðar ‘the woman’s’ in the second, and in II 11/5-8, where hon and kona ‘the woman’ are seemingly in apposition, expressing the subject of the first clause, and man ‘the maiden’ in the second. For an alternation of the same heiti, brúðr and snót, see also Gríp 45 and 46. Omission of nom. -r, as apparently here, occurs sporadically in Hb (e.g. lávarð for lávarðr in II 57/8). Bret 1848-9 retains without emendation, translating ll. 7-8 as og dem begge brat udtörrer ‘and dries them both out instantly’, without explaining how bruð- would equate in sense or grammatical function to brat ‘instantly’. Other suggestions require the postulation of unattested idioms or lexical items: Skj B (followed by Skald) emends to ok hon brauðþurra ‘and she [makes them] dry as bread’, while Merl 2012 retains *bruðþurra, apparently interpreting as ‘so dry as to be hard to eat’, but aside from the implausibility of such a formation the logic is hard to follow, since there is no question of the springs serving as food.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
4. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
5. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
6. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
7. 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.
8. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
9. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
10. Internal references
11. 2017, ‘ Unattributed, Breta saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 38. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=125> (accessed 26 April 2024)
12. Tarrin Wills and Stefanie Gropper 2007, ‘ Anonymous, Hugsvinnsmál’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 358-449. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1018> (accessed 26 April 2024)
13. Not published: do not cite ()