GunnLeif Merl I 12^VIII

‘Sofa þar í dimmu         djúpi niðri
tvennir ormar         tveim hellum í.
Þeir eru lindar         lands ólíkir;
sék rauða seil         rás ok hvíta.

‘Tvennir ormar sofa þar í dimmu djúpi niðri í tveim hellum. {Þeir lindar lands} eru ólíkir; sék {rauða ok hvíta seil rás}.

‘Two snakes sleep there in the dark depth down in two caves. {Those girdles of the land} [SNAKES] are unlike [one another]; I see {a red and a white rope of the earth} [SNAKE].

Mss: Hb(51r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 23, Skj BII, 26, Skald II, 16; Bret 1848-9, II, 42-3 (Bret st. 80); Hb 1892-6, 278; Merl 2012, 137-8.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 108 and 111 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 141.573-4, cf. 145.25-6): et uidebis in fundo duos concauos lapides et in illis duos dracones dormientes … quorum unus erat albus et alius rubeus ‘and at the bottom you will see two hollow rocks with two dragons asleep in them …, one white, one red’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 140, cf. 144). Gunnlaugr interprets the ‘hollow rocks’ as caves. The decasyllabic version of the Anglo-Norman Verse Prophecies of Merlin also uses this interpretation (Blacker 2005, 80), but probably this agreement arises through independent anticipation of Prophecy 1 (see I 21 Note to [All]). — [7-8] seil rás ‘a rope of the earth [SNAKE]’: This, together with lindar lands ‘girdles of the land’ (ll. 5-6), is the first of several snake-kennings Gunnlaugr employs that implicitly compare a snake to a rope, thong, girdle or fetter. In the analysis of Meissner 114-15, the defining phrase ‘of the land’ or similar used in association with these base-words might mean either ‘living on the ground’ or ‘encircling the earth’, in the latter case with their basis in the story of the Miðgarðsormr or World Serpent. — [8] rás ‘of the earth’: This heiti for ‘land, earth’ occurs uniquely in Merl. Cf. I 21/2 and LP: rá. The word is little-known in Icelandic (CVC: rá n. ‘landmark’) and not attested by Fritzner or ONP, though it occurs in Modern Norwegian and Swedish dialects in the sense ‘boundary’ (AEW: rá). Possibly Gunnlaugr knew it from no longer extant skaldic poems.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
4. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
5. 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.
6. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
8. 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.
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. Blacker, Jean, ed. 2005. ‘The Anglo-Norman Verse Prophecies of Merlin’. Arthuriana 15, 1-125.
12. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
13. Internal references
14. 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)