GunnLeif Merl I 16^VIII

Gerisk sókn mikil         snáka tveggja;
gapa grimmliga         grundar belti.
Hǫggvask hœknir         hauðrs gyrðingar,
blásask eitri á         ok blôm eldi.

Mikil sókn snáka tveggja gerisk; {belti grundar} gapa grimmliga. {Hœknir gyrðingar hauðrs} hǫggvask, blásask eitri ok blôm eldi á.

A great fight commences between the two snakes; {the belts of the ground} [SNAKES] gape savagely. {The vicious girdles of the earth} [SNAKES] strike each other, blow venom and blue fire on each other.

Mss: Hb(51r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 24, Skj BII, 27, Skald II, 17; Bret 1848-9, II, 44 (Bret st. 84); Hb 1892-6, 278; Merl 2012, 140.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 111 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145.27-8): commiserunt diram pugnam et ignem anhelitu procreabant ‘they fought a terrible battle and created fire with their breath’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 144). Gunnlaugr goes beyond DGB in specifying the emission of venom and the colour of the flame (on the latter see Note to l. 8 below). — [5] hœknir ‘vicious’: A hap. leg., whose meaning and origin are uncertain but whose core sense has been stated as ‘greedy’ (LP: hœkinn; cf. CVC: hækinn). Finnur Jónsson translates with a query as kraftig ‘powerfully’ in Skj B; Merl 2012 has heftig ‘violently’. But if the etymological connection with hákr conjectured in LP is correct, the meaning might rather be ‘vicious, relentless’; cf. the ONP citation (ÍF 12, 303): Var hann því kallaðr Þorkell hákr, at hann eirði hvárki í orðum né verkum, við hvern sem hann átti ‘He was called Þorkell hákr because he never spared anyone in words or deeds with whom he had dealings’. The word hákr is attested only in nicknames; for (inconclusive) conjectures as to its core meaning and etymology see AEW: hákr. — [8] blôm eldi ‘blue fire’: The reference is probably to the blue flame emitted on combustion of sulphur. In a fragment of Barth extant in the mid-C13th Norwegian ms. AM 237 b fol (Loth 1969, 233), the phrase blár loge ‘blue flame’ is used to translate Lat. flamma sulphurea ‘sulphurous flame’ (cf. ONP: blár 3; Loth 1969, 221).

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. 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. ÍF 12 = Brennu-Njáls saga. Ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson. 1954.
10. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
11. 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.
12. Loth, Agnete. 1969. ‘Et gammelnorsk apostelsagafragment: AM 237 b fol.’. In Jakob Benediktsson 1969, 219-34.
13. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
14. Internal references
15. 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 4 May 2024)