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skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

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GunnLeif Merl I 62VIII

Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 130 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 62)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 99.

Gunnlaugr LeifssonMerlínusspá I
616263

‘En eptir þat         óðals á vit
fara fráliga         fyrðar brezkir.
Þó es illa áðr         ært í landi;
eru ósáttar         enskar þjóðir.

‘En brezkir fyrðar fara fráliga eptir þat á vit óðals. Þó es ært illa áðr í landi; enskar þjóðir eru ósáttar.

‘But the British people will go back swiftly after that to their ancestral land. Yet there has been a poor harvest previously in the land; the English peoples will be at odds with one another.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 30, Skj BII, 36, Skald II, 23; Bret 1848-9, II, 60 (Bret st. 130); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 175.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.107-8; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 19): Deinde reuertentur ciues in insulam; nam discidium alienigenarum orietur ‘Then the natives will return to the island; for strife will break out among the foreigners’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). Here Geoffrey seems to envisage a return by the Bretons (living in Armorica, across the English Channel), to the British Isles, taking advantage of discord among the English. Their initial migration to Brittany is alluded to in I 37. The idea of the poor harvest is added by Gunnlaugr; see Note to I 32/5-8.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
  3. 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.
  4. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
  5. 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.
  6. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
  7. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
  8. Internal references
  9. 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 30 March 2024)
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