GunnLeif Merl I 13^VIII

‘Lát grund grafa,         gera skorninga,’
sagði Merlínus         menja deili.
‘Veitið vatni,         ok vitið síðan,
hvat spát hafi         spillir bauga,
— þat es nýlunda —         niðr ór fjalli.’

‘Lát grafa grund, gera skorninga,’ sagði Merlínus {deili menja}. ‘Veitið vatni niðr ór fjalli ok vitið síðan, hvat {spillir bauga} hafi spát; þat es nýlunda.’

‘Have the earth dug, form channels,’ Merlin said {to the sharer of neck-rings} [GENEROUS MAN = Vortigern]. ‘Drain the lake down from the mountain and then find out what {the despoiler of rings} [GENEROUS MAN = Merlin] has prophesied; that is a novelty.’

Mss: Hb(51r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 23-4, Skj BII, 26, Skald II, 16-17; Bret 1848-9, II, 43 (Bret st. 81); Hb 1892-6, 278; Merl 2012, 138-9.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 108 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 141.573): Praecipe hauriri stagnum per riuulos ‘Order the pool to be drained through channels’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 140). — [2] skorninga ‘channels’: A hap. leg. in poetry (LP: skorningr). The word is attested only three times in prose (ONP: skorningr), all in the meaning of ‘strip of cloth’ (CVC: skorningr); the general sense is ‘cutting’. — [5-10]: Complex word order occurs intermittently in Merl. See for example I 54/9-12 and I 63/5‑8. — [5-6] veitið … vitið ‘drain … find out’: As noted by Merl 2012, this is 2nd pers. pl., contrasting with the sg. lát ‘let’ used in l.1. The interpretation of Merl 2012 is that Merlin turns from addressing Vortigernus to addressing his workmen. More likely, however, is that implicitly Vortigernus is the speaker of ll. 5-10, as indicated by the following sentence in DGB (see I 14, Note to [All]).

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
3. 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.
4. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
5. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
6. 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.
7. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
8. 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.
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 3 May 2024)