GunnLeif Merl I 34^VIII

‘Sá, es slíkt gerir,         mun sjalfr taka
eirmann á sik,         aldar stjóri;
ok of hô hliði         hilmir síðan
eirhesti á         ítarligr sitr.
Gætir Lundúna         lofsæll konungr.

‘{Sá stjóri aldar}, es gerir slíkt, mun sjalfr taka eirmann á sik; ok hilmir sitr síðan ítarligr á eirhesti of hô hliði. Lofsæll konungr gætir Lundúna.

‘{That ruler of the people} [KING = Caduallo] who does this will take a copper form upon himself, and thenceforward the ruler will sit in splendour on a copper horse above the high gate. The renowned king will watch over London.

Mss: Hb(51v) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 26, Skj BII, 30-1, Skald II, 19; Bret 1848-9, II, 50 (Bret st. 102); Hb 1892-6, 279; Merl 2012, 152-3.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.55-6; cf. Wright 1988, 102, prophecy 4): Qui faciet haec aeneum uirum induet et per multa tempora super aeneum equum portas Londoniae seruabit ‘He who achieves this will don a man of bronze and for many years guard the gates of London upon a bronze steed’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 146). This prophecy alludes to the placing of the body of King Caduallo inside a bronze effigy, narrated in DGB XI (Reeve and Wright 2007, 276-7). The effigy combined with its mount would have made up an equestrian statue (cf. Tatlock 1950, 375). — [3] eirmann ‘a copper form’: Lit. ‘copper man’. The word is a hap. leg. (LP, ONP: eirmaðr). — [7] eirhesti ‘a copper horse’: The word is attested only here and in Bret (ONP: eirhestr). — [9-10]: The <G> in Gætir is majuscule in the ms., presumably to indicate that in the belief of the copyist a new stanza began at this point. But the grouping of the narrative material speaks for the division of stanzas adopted here and by all previous eds.

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. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
5. 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.
6. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
7. 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.
8. Tatlock, J. S. P. 1950. The Legendary History of Britain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
9. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
10. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
11. Internal references
12. 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 24 April 2024)