Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 137 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 69)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 105.
‘Falla fyrðar í fleindrífu;
verðr enskri þjóð aldrspell skipat.
Es vǫllr roðinn en víg boðin;
hlýtr hôvan sigr helmingr Breta.
‘Fyrðar falla í {fleindrífu}; aldrspell verðr skipat enskri þjóð. Vǫllr es roðinn en víg boðin; helmingr Breta hlýtr hôvan sigr.
‘Men will fall in {the arrow-blizzard} [BATTLE]; loss of life will be allotted for the English people. The field will be stained red and killing proffered; the forcè of Britons will win a great victory.
Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 31, Skj BII, 38, Skald II, 24; Bret 1848-9, II, 63 (Bret st. 137); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 182.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.111; cf. Wright 1988, 105, prophecy 20): Tunc erit strages alienigenarum ‘Then there will be a slaughter of foreigners’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). — [6] en ‘and’: Lines 5-6 comprise two parallel clauses joined by en ‘and’. Merl 2012 interprets as adv. enn, translated as wiederum ‘again’. This reading is ruled out, however, as l. 6 would then require a finite verb in metrical position 2. — [6] víg ‘killing’: The heiti can mean either ‘killing’ or ‘battle’ and it is often difficult to distinguish between these senses (cf. LP: víg), but context in this passage seems to suggest the former. Bret 1848-9 has Slagmarken den röde bedækkes af Döde ‘the red battlefield is covered with the dead’ (an atypically free translation, perhaps intended to match the end-rhyme in the original) and Skj B mandefald sker ‘slaughter of men occurs’.
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