GunnLeif Merl II 44^VIII

‘Ok svíns at þat         á sik hami
brigðr ok brœðra         bíðr slœgliga.
En, es þeir koma         kosti at fœra,
bítr hann báða tvá         ok banar hlýrum.

‘Ok brigðr á sik hami svíns at þat ok bíðr brœðra slœgliga. En, es þeir koma at fœra kosti, bítr hann báða tvá ok banar hlýrum.

‘And with that he will take on the form of the boar and wait slyly for the brothers. But when they come to bring their offerings he will bite both of them and will slay the siblings.

Mss: Hb(50r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 8, Skj BII, 19, Skald II, 12; Bret 1848-9, II, 31-2 (Bret st. 45); Hb 1892-6, 275; Merl 2012, 108.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 116 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 155.202-4; cf. Wright 1988, 110, prophecy 44): Exin transuertet sese in aprum et quasi sine membris expectabit germanos. Sed et ipsos postquam aduenerint subito dente interficiet ‘Next it will disguise itself as the boar and as if without its members await its brothers. But when they arrive, it will swiftly bite them also to death’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 154). In other words, the fox, now de facto a king, takes on the semblance of the deposed and assassinated boar-king in order to dispose of its brothers, the bear and the wolf. This stanza and II 45 appear in reverse order in Hb, followed by Bret 1848-9, Skj B and Skald, but the announcement of the end of the saga þengils ‘story of the king’ in II 45/5-8 should logically come at the point when indeed nothing remains to be added to his story. The reversal of stanza-order can be explained on the basis of eye-skip from one helmingr-initial ok to another, followed by retrospective insertion of the missing stanza (Poole 2009a, 316-17; cf. Merl 2012). — [6] kosti ‘their offerings’: Referring to the substitutes for the boar’s missing body parts that the wolf and bear have promised to bring. — [7] hann ‘he’: Omitted in Skald.

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. 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.
5. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
6. 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.
7. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
8. Poole, Russell. 2009a. ‘In Quest of Saga Styles in Merlínússpá’. In Margrét Eggertsdóttir et al. 2009, 307-22.
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 25 April 2024)