GunnLeif Merl I 45^VIII

Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 113 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 45)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 81.

Interactive view: tap on words in the text for notes and glosses

Cf. DGB 113 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 147.69-71; cf. Wright 1988, 103, prophecy 8): Erit deauratio in templis, nec acumen gladiorum cessabit. Vix obtinebit cauernas suas Germanicus draco, quia ultio prodicionis eius superueniet ‘There will be gilding in the temples, nor will the sharpness of sword-blades decline. The Germanic dragon will be hard put to keep possession of its caves, since retribution will be visited on its treason’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 146). Gunnlaugr renders cauernas ‘caves’ as híð ‘lairs’, here differing from his interpretation of the earlier occurrence of cauernas as ‘lands’ (see I 21 Note to [All]). He seems to have had the majority reading draco ‘dragon’ in his source ms., not the minority variant vermis ‘worm, serpent’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 147). The mention of enriched decoration of churches might relate to the very large endowments to religious foundations from Cnut and, later in the C11th, Edward the Confessor. The treachery Geoffrey alludes to might be both the generalised perfidy of the Saxons, as seen from a British perspective, and the more specific perceived failure of Earl Harold Godwineson to keep his oath to Duke William, as interpreted by, for instance, the C12th commentator John of Cornwall (Curley 1982, 237; on Harold’s oath see Stenton 1971, 577-8).