GunnLeif Merl I 68^VIII

‘Hrapa hræva gǫr,         hátt gjalla spjǫr,
es malmþrima         mest á hjarli.
Verðr einn við einn         valkǫstr hlaðinn;
munu blóðgar ár         af bjǫðum falla,
en vígroða         verpr á hlýrni.

‘Gǫr hræva hrapa, spjǫr gjalla hátt, {malmþrima} es mest á hjarli. Einn valkǫstr verðr hlaðinn við einn; blóðgar ár munu falla af bjǫðum, en vígroða verpr á hlýrni.

‘Heaps of corpses tumble, spears scream loudly, {the weapon-tumult} [BATTLE] is greatest on the earth. One pile of slain is built up beside another; bloody rivers will fall from the lands, and the redness of battle is cast up into heaven.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 31, Skj BII, 37-8, Skald II, 24, NN §2406; Bret 1848-9, II, 62-3 (Bret st. 136); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 180-2.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.111-12; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 20): tunc flumina sanguine manabunt ‘then the rivers will flow with blood’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). Gunnlaugr reverses the order of this and the following clause from DGB (see I 69 Note to [All]). The rest of the material represents battle commonplaces in skaldic style. — [1-2]: The end-rhyme is reminiscent of runhent but, aside from I 69/5-6, Gunnlaugr does not maintain the treatment consistently; a more thorough-going attempt is seen in II 36. — [9] en ‘and’: Treated as enn ‘once more’, introducing a new sentence, in Skald, but this violates the word order in independent clauses. — [9] vígroða ‘the redness of battle’: For the full array of attestations of this and related compounds see Kommentar IV, 726-7. It is usually interpreted as a red glow in the sky, portending battle (Bret 1848-9; Skj B; LP: vígroði; LT: vígroði; cf. NN §2406 stridens glöd ‘glow of battle’). Given the context in Merl, an additional connotation might be that blood spatters the heavens: cf. Anon Darr 1/4^V(Nj 53) rignir blóði ‘it rains with blood’.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. 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.
6. Kommentar = See, Klaus von et al. 1997-2012. Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. 7 vols. Heidelberg: Winter.
7. LT = La Farge, Beatrice and John Tucker. 1992. Glossary to the Poetic Edda, based on Hans Kuhn’s Kurzes Wörterbuch. Skandinavistische Arbeiten 15. Heidelberg: Winter.
8. 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.
9. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
10. 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.
11. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
12. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
13. Internal references
14. R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 53 (Anonymous Poems, Darraðarljóð 1)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1299.
15. 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 25 April 2024)