GunnLeif Merl I 6VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 74 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 6)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 52.
En hertogi hœlis leitar;
gerisk traustan turn tyggi at smíða.
Ok þangat til þeirar gerðar
samnar mǫrgum mildingr smiðum.
En hertogi leitar hœlis; tyggi gerisk at smíða traustan turn. Ok mildingr samnar mǫrgum smiðum þangat til þeirar gerðar.
But the duke searches for a stronghold; the lord sets about building a trusty tower. And the king assembles many craftsmen there for that work.
Mss: Hb(50v-51r) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 22, Skj BII, 25, Skald II, 16; Bret 1848-9, II, 40 (Bret st. 74); Hb 1892-6, 277; Merl 2012, 132-3.
Notes: [All]: This and the following stanza derive from the following in DGB 106 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 137.499-503): Vocatis denique magis suis, consuluit illos iussitque dicere quid faceret. Qui dixerunt ut aedificaret sibi turrim fortissimam quae sibi tutamen foret, cum ceteras munitiones amisisset … Venit tandem ad montem Erir, ubi coadunatis ex diuersis patriis caementariis iussit turrim construere ‘Finally he summoned and consulted his magicians, commanding them to tell him what to do. They said that he should build a very strong tower as a refuge, since he had lost his other fortresses … he came at last to Mount Snowdon, where he gathered stonemasons from various regions and ordered them to build the tower’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 136). — [1] hertogi ‘the duke’: I.e. Vortigern. — [5-6] til þeirar gerðar ‘for that work’: The placement of prep. and noun phrase in enjambement is a poetic licence used sporadically in Merl (cf. Notes to I 47/3, 4, I 63/6, 7, II 7/10, and II 12/3).
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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 27 April 2024)
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