GunnLeif Merl II 43VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 43 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá II 43)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 172.
‘Es fundr lagiðr ok friðr samiðr;
koma mildingar málstefnu til.
En á fundi þeim flærðir reynask;
banar hertoga brezkr landreki.
‘Fundr es lagiðr ok friðr samiðr; mildingar koma til málstefnu. En flærðir reynask á þeim fundi; brezkr landreki banar hertoga.
‘A meeting will be set and a safe-conduct concluded; the leaders will come to the council. But at that meeting treacheries will come to pass; the British ruler will slay the war-leader.
Mss: Hb(50r) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 18, Skj BII, 19, Skald II, 12; Bret 1848-9, II, 31 (Bret st. 43); Hb 1892-6, 275; Merl 2012, 107.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 155.202; cf. Wright 1988, 110, prophecy 44): et ipsum totum deuorabit ‘and will eat him whole’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 154). Here the usurping fox, disguised as the wolf, consumes the boar-king: Geoffrey’s animal symbolism is rationalised in Merl. Gunnlaugr also elaborates on the establishment of the truce, both here and in the preceding stanza. — [4] málstefnu ‘the council’: The sole attestation of this cpd in poetry. Cf. mæltrar stefnu ‘appointed meeting’ in Halli XI Fl 3/4II, a poem that exhibits a similar interest in procedures concerning truces and meetings.
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 26 April 2024)
- Russell Poole (ed.) 2009, ‘Halli stirði, Flokkr 3’ in Kari Ellen Gade (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 340-1.
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