GunnLeif Merl II 15^VIII

‘Þeir þjótandi         þrjár of hrœra
búnir at berjask         Bretlands eyjar.
Þá mun vakna         viðr inn danski
ok manns rǫddu         mæla sjalfri.

‘Þjótandi, búnir at berjask, of hrœra þeir þrjár eyjar Bretlands. Þá mun inn danski viðr vakna ok mæla sjalfri rǫddu manns.

‘Wailing, prepared to fight, they will stir up the three islands of Britain. Then the Danish wood will awake and speak with a man’s actual voice.

Mss: Hb(49v) (Bret)

Readings: [2] þrjár: þrír Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 13, Skj BII, 13, Skald II, 8; Bret 1848-9, II, 19 (Bret st. 15); Hb 1892-6, 273; Merl 2012, 80-1.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.164-6; cf. Wright 1988, 108, prophecies 34 and 35): quae nefando sonitu tres insulas Britanniae commouebunt. Excitabitur Daneum nemus et in humanam uocem erumpens clamabit ‘which stir up Britain’s three islands with their dreadful sound. The Daneian Forest will awaken and shout in a human voice’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). — [1] þeir ‘they’: Presumably the referent is loosely understood as the people of the island (sg.), who are mentioned as wailing in II 13/5-8. — [2] þrjár ‘three’: Emended from ms. þrír (refreshed), the m. nom. pl. form, in Bret 1848-9, followed by all subsequent eds. — [3]: Gunnlaugr makes Geoffrey’s implications of ensuing battle explicit. — [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]. — [8] sjalfri ‘actual’: This adj. is translated as saalunde ‘thus’ (referring to the ensuing speech) in Bret 1848-9 and left unaccounted for in Skj B; Merl 2012 translates und selbst mit der Stimme eines Menschen sprechen ‘and itself speak with the voice of a man’. But sjalfri is dat., qualifying rǫddu ‘voice’, and should be construed in the sense of ‘very, actual’ (cf. CVC: sjálfr). Gunnlaugr’s translation thereby emphasises the miraculous nature of the event more than is expressed in the Latin.

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. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. 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.
6. Poole, Russell. 1987. ‘Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History: Some Aspects of the Period 1009-1016’. Speculum 62, 265-98.
7. 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.
8. Townend, Matthew. 1998. English Place-Names in Skaldic Verse. English Place-Name Society extra ser. 1. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society.
9. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
10. 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.
11. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
12. Poole, Austin Lane. 1955. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087-1216. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
13. Blacker, Jean, ed. 2005. ‘The Anglo-Norman Verse Prophecies of Merlin’. Arthuriana 15, 1-125.
14. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
15. Internal references
16. 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 3 May 2024)
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.