GunnLeif Merl I 18VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 86 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 18)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 60.
Þeir víg gera vatns farveg í,
ok lengi hvatt linnar berjask.
Mega ormar þar ýmsir meira
ok ýmsir þar undan leggja.
Þeir gera víg í farveg vatns, ok linnar berjask lengi hvatt. Ýmsir ormar mega þar meira ok ýmsir leggja þar undan.
They wage battle in the lake’s outlet and the snakes fight each other fiercely for a long time. Now one snake, now the other has the advantage there; now one, now the other takes refuge there.
Mss: Hb(51r) (Bret)
Readings: [7] þar: þeir Hb
Editions: Skj AII, 24, Skj BII, 27, Skald II, 17; Bret 1848-9, II, 44-5 (Bret st. 86); Hb 1892-6, 278; Merl 2012, 141-2.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 111 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 145.30-1): Ipsis ergo in hunc modum pugnantibus ‘As they fought in this way’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 144). — [2] farveg vatns ‘the lake’s outlet’: Referring to the skorningar ‘channels’ mentioned in I 13/2. The noun farvegr, lit. ‘route of travel’, is in prose predominantly used of the course of a river (Fritzner: farvegr 2; ONP: farvegr) but this is its sole attestation in that sense in poetry (LP: farvegr). — [7] þar ‘there’: Emended in this edn from ms. þeir ‘they’ (not refreshed) for the sake of sense and parallelism with l. 5.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
- 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.
- 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 11 May 2024)
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