GunnLeif Merl I 83VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 151 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 83)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 119.
‘Upp renn síðan — sék þat fyrir —
traust í turni tré Lundúna;
þrír eru kvistir þeim lundi á,
en hann laufi þekr land með hringum.
‘Traust tré renn upp síðan í turni Lundúna; sék þat fyrir. Þrír kvistir eru á þeim lundi, en hann þekr laufi land með hringum.
‘A sturdy tree will shoot up then in the tower of London: I foresee that. There are three branches on that tree and with its foliage it completely shelters the land.
Mss: Hb(52v) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 33, Skj BII, 41, Skald II, 25-6; Bret 1848-9, II, 68 (Bret st. 151); Hb 1892-6, 282; Merl 2012, 193-4.
Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 151.131-3; cf. Wright 1988, 106, prophecy 27): Exin super turrim Lundoniarum procreabitur arbor, quae tribus solummodo ramis contenta superficiem tocius insulae latitudine foliorum obumbrabit ‘Then a tree will sprout above the tower of London, whose three branches in themselves will shade the surface of the entire island with the breadth of their foliage’ (cf. Reeve and Wright 2007, 150). — [8] með hringum ‘completely’: A common idiom (CVC: hringr). Comparable is II 13/8.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
- 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.
- Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
- 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 6 May 2024)
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