GunnLeif Merl I 82^VIII

‘Falla ór orða         almærri vǫk
dynjandi ár         dróttar stýris.
Þær munu dǫggva         dýrar jarðir
geðs í glæstum         gollorheimi
ok þurrar kverkr         þjóðar margrar.

‘Dynjandi ár falla ór {almærri vǫk orða} {stýris dróttar}. Þær munu dǫggva {dýrar jarðir geðs} í {glæstum gollorheimi} ok þurrar kverkr margrar þjóðar.

‘Resounding rivers will fall from {the much-famed gap of words} [MOUTH] {of the ruler of the entourage} [PRINCE]. They will spread dew {on the beloved lands of the mind} [HEARTS] in {the splendid home of the pericardium} [BREAST] and on the dry throats of many a people.

Mss: Hb(52v) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 33, Skj BII, 40, Skald II, 25; Bret 1848-9, II, 67-8 (Bret st. 150); Hb 1892-6, 282; Merl 2012, 193.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 151.130-1; cf. Wright 1988, 106, prophecy 26): Ex ore ipsius procedent flumina, quae arentes hominum fauces rigabunt ‘Out of his mouth will issue rivers to moisten the parched throats of men’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 150). Geoffrey continues his prophecies regarding the ‘boar of commerce’. The source material for sts 81 and 82 is somewhat amplified in Merl, evidently so as to explicate the allegory. — [6-7] dýrar jarðir geðs ‘the beloved lands of the mind [HEARTS]’: In Bret 1848-9 and Skj B, the latter followed by Merl 2012, geðs ‘of the mind’ is grouped with gollorheimi ‘in the home of the pericardium’ (Skj B has sjælens hjærteverden ‘heart-world of the soul’), but there it is redundant, whereas it is positively required as a determinant for jarðir ‘lands’, to generate a kenning for a part of the body, as is evident from the parallelism with kverkr ‘throats’ in l. 9. Cf. II 35/6, where gollorhallir ‘halls of the pericardium’, a parallel formation, signifies ‘breasts’. — [8] gollor- ‘pericardium’: The membrane enclosing the heart (OED: pericardium). Thus the breast can be termed the ‘home of the pericardium’. Attestations of the word are restricted to literary usage. In poetry the word occurs only here and in Þul Hugar ok hjarta^III. The two prose attestations cited by ONP: gollurr are from SnE mss, and occur in discussions of heiti for ‘heart’; in one of these passages gollorr is itself understood as such a heiti (cf. CVC: gollurr; Fritzner, LP, AEW: gollorr; also Guðrún Nordal 2001, 255‑6).

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. AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
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. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. Guðrún Nordal. 2001. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press.
8. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
9. OED = Murray, J. A. H. et al., eds. 1884-1928. The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon. 2nd edn 1989. Simpson, J. A. and E. S. C. Weiner, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
11. 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.
12. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
13. 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.
14. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
15. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
16. Internal references
17. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
18. 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 28 April 2024)
19. Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hugar heiti ok hjarta’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 964. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3243> (accessed 28 April 2024)