GunnLeif Merl I 40^VIII

‘Mun sáð koma         sinni ǫðru
útlent yfir         óra garða.
En samt yfir         á svǫlum barmi
eylands þrumir         ormr inn rauði;
fær hann lítit         af landinu.

‘Mun útlent sáð koma ǫðru sinni yfir garða óra. En inn rauði ormr þrumir samt yfir á svǫlum barmi eylands; hann fær lítit af landinu.

‘Foreign seed will come a second time over our precincts. And still the red snake remains on the cool fringe of the island; he will gain little from the land.

Mss: Hb(51v) (Bret)

Readings: [5] samt: sumt Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 27, Skj BII, 32, Skald II, 20; Bret 1848-9, II, 52 (Bret st. 108); Hb 1892-6, 279; Merl 2012, 157-8.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 112 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.63-4; cf. Wright 1988, 103, prophecy 6): Replebuntur iterum ortuli nostri alieno semine, et in extremitate stagni languebit rubeus ‘Our gardens will be filled again with foreign seed and the red dragon will languish at the pool’s edge’. This prophecy alludes to the restriction of British occupation to Wales, narrated in DGB XI (Reeve and Wright 2007, 280-1). Gunnlaugr replaces the symbolic pool with the literal island and appears to freely add the notion that the British king will gain little from his occupation of Wales, in a theme of land use and productivity that appears occasionally elsewhere; for other instances see Note to I 32/5-8. DGB speaks disparagingly about the British dynasties in Wales but does not address this specific point (Reeve and Wright 2007, 280-1). — [5] samt ‘still’: Emended in this edn from ms. sumt ‘some’ (not refreshed), which Bret 1848-9, Skj B and Merl 2012 retain but without translation (also retained in Skald). The sense is ‘continuously’ (CVC: samr; Fritzner: samr 4). — [9-10]: Previous eds have placed these lines at the beginning of I 41, but they are clearly integral to the present stanza, just as they are clearly extraneous to the subject-matter of I 41. The stanza division in Hb, signalled by rubricated majuscule <F> initial in fær, is likely to be erroneous; for the reverse error, cf. I 34/9-10 and I 35/7-10.

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. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
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. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
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 27 April 2024)