GunnLeif Merl II 29VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 29 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá II 29)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 161.
‘Brœðr vill hann sína beita vélum;
tekr horshǫfuð hildingr á sik.
En hoddskata hræðask báðir;
flýja barmar brott ór landi.
‘Hann vill beita brœðr sína vélum; hildingr tekr horshǫfuð á sik. En báðir hræðask {hoddskata}; barmar flýja brott ór landi.
‘It will attack its brothers with tricks; the ruler will put on a horse’s head. And both [brothers] will fear {the treasure-chieftain} [MAN]; the brothers will flee from the land.
Mss: Hb(50r) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 15, Skj BII, 16, Skald II, 10; Bret 1848-9, II, 26 (Bret st. 29); Hb 1892-6, 274; Merl 2012, 93.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 153.189-91; cf. Wright 1988, 109, prophecy 41): et asininum caput gestabit. Monstro igitur assumpto, terrebit fratres suos ipsosque in Neustriam fugabit ‘and wear the head of an ass. Taking on the form of a monster, therefore, it will frighten its brothers and drive them off to Normandy’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 152). Gunnlaugr omits the mention of Neustria (Normandy) as the brothers’ place of refuge, perhaps because the wild boar whose aid they enlist in the following stanza is more to be associated with Cornwall. Cf. Note to II 31/7-8. — [1] hann ‘it’: Omitted in Skald.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
- 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.
- Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
- Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
- Internal references
- 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 24 April 2024)
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