GunnLeif Merl II 24^VIII

‘Kemr ór skógi         Kalatérío
fogl fljúgandi,         sás fira villir.
Flýgr of nôttum,         nýsir gǫrla;
kallar hegri         hvern fogl til sín;
es um tvívetri         tálráð samit.

‘Fogl kemr fljúgandi ór skógi Kalatérío, sás villir fira. Flýgr of nôttum, nýsir gǫrla; hegri kallar hvern fogl til sín; tálráð es samit um tvívetri.

‘From the forest of Calaterium a bird will come flying that will lead men astray. It will fly at night, spy thoroughly; the heron will call every bird to itself; treachery will be devised over a two-year span.

Mss: Hb(49v) (Bret)

Readings: [3] fljúgandi: fljúganda Hb    [7] hegri: hegra Hb    [8] sín: þín Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 14, Skj BII, 15, Skald II, 9; Bret 1848-9, II, 23-4 (Bret st. 24); Hb 1892-6, 273-4; Merl 2012, 89-90.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.181-3; cf. Wright 1988, 109, prophecy 39): Post haec ex Calaterio nemore procedet ardea, quae insulam per biennium circumuolabit. Nocturno clamore conuocabit uolatilia et omne genus uolucrum associabit sibi ‘Afterwards a heron will emerge from the forest of Calaterium and will circle the island for two years. It will summon the birds of the air with its cry at night and assemble all their species’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). Gunnlaugr partially rationalises the prophecy of a charismatic new leader and adds the notion of his treachery. The forest of Calaterium is unidentified but evidently located in Albania (Scotland), as appears from DGB III (Reeve and Wright 2007, 50-1; cf. Tatlock 1950, 17-18). — [1, 3]: De Vries (1964-7, II, 75 n. 179) compares Vsp 66/2. — [3] fljúgandi ‘flying’: Emended from ms. fljúganda (refreshed) in Bret 1848-9, followed by subsequent eds. — [4] sás villir fira ‘that will lead men astray’: This is Gunnlaugr’s amplification of DGB, perhaps in allusion to the notion of the heron seen in Hávm 13/1-3 (NK 19): Óminnis hegri heitir, | sá er yfir ǫlðrom þrumir, | hann stelr geði guma ‘He is called the heron of forgetfulness, who hovers over the ale-feasts; he steals the wits of men’. How the heron gained this reputation is unclear (Evans 1986, 80). Dronke (1984, 54-5) notes a traditional association of this bird with vomiting and flapping around as if drunk, but it is hard to see why such behaviours would ‘lead men astray’, as required by the context in Hávm and Merl. Invective against drunkenness on Gunnlaugr’s part is seen again in II 56-7. In modern times the Black-crowned Night Heron (nátthegri, Nycticorax nycticorax) is an occasional visitor and resident in Iceland (Gunnlaugur Pétursson 2006). — [6]: The idea of the heron acting as a spy (or scout?) is introduced by Gunnlaugr. — [7] hegri ‘the heron’: Emended from ms. hegra (refreshed) in Bret 1848-9, followed by Skj B and Skald. This is a rarely attested word in Old Norse; outside Merl there are only two attestations in poetry (LP: hegri) and in all four prose citations in ONP it is used as a nickname rather than a common noun; of the two men thus designated, one is a C12th Norwegian and the other an early settler in Iceland. Merl 2012 retains hegra without explanation of this form. — [8] sín ‘itself’: Emended from ms. þín (refreshed) in Bret 1848-9, followed by subsequent eds.

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. Evans, David A. H., ed. 1986. Hávamál. Viking Society Text Series 7. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
6. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
7. NK = Neckel, Gustav and Hans Kuhn (1899), eds. 1983. Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. 2 vols. I: Text. 5th edn. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
9. 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.
10. Dronke, Ursula. 1984. ‘Óminnis hegri’. In Fidjestøl et al. 1984, 53-60.
11. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
12. 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.
13. Tatlock, J. S. P. 1950. The Legendary History of Britain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
14. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
15. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
16. Gunnlaugur Pétursson. 2006. ‘Black-crowned Night Herons in Iceland’. Birding Iceland. <https://notendur.hi.is/yannk/varia.html#status>
17. Internal references
18. 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 25 April 2024)
19. Not published: do not cite ()
20. Not published: do not cite ()