GunnLeif Merl I 95^VIII

Viti bragnar þat,         þeirs bók lesa,
hvé at spjǫllum sé         spámanns farit,
ok kynni þat         kjaldýrs viðum,
hverr fyrða sé         framsýnna hôttr
môl at rekja,          þaus menn vitut.

Bragnar, þeirs lesa bók, viti þat, hvé sé farit at spjǫllum spámanns, ok kynni þat {viðum {kjaldýrs}}, hverr hôttr framsýnna fyrða sé at rekja môl, þaus menn vitut.

May men, who read the book, know that, how the prophet’s sayings have been rendered, and teach that {to trees {of the keel-beast}} [SHIP > SEAFARERS], what the style of prophetic persons is in narrating matters that men do not know.

Mss: Hb(52v) (Bret)

Readings: [5] kynni: kunni Hb    [6] kjal‑: kal Hb    [8] hôttr: hôttu corrected from ‘hôttr’ during the process of refreshing Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 35, Skj BII, 43, Skald II, 27; Bret 1848-9, II, 72 (Bret st. 163); Hb 1892-6, 283; Merl 2012, 203-4.

Notes: [5] kynni ‘teach’: Emended in Skj B, followed by Skald and Merl 2012, from ms. kunni (refreshed). — [6] kjaldýrs ‘of the keel-beast [SHIP]’: Obscure but probably a kenning for ‘ship’. The determinant kal- is difficult to explain as it stands. A first element kal- in compounds occurs in kalreip ‘rope on a ship that prevents the sail from flapping’, but is unlikely to be relevant, since it depends on the (Modern Icelandic) idiom segl kelur ‘the sail loses the wind’, lit. ‘the sail cools’ (LP: kalreip), thus a ‘rope [to prevent] “cooling”’. Instead ms. kal- appears to represent a miswriting for (or conceivably a reduced form of) kjal-, combinative form of kjǫlr ‘keel’. Thus ‘of the keel-beast [SHIP]’. The late kenning meiðar kjaldúks ‘trees of the keel-cloth’ (EGils Guðkv 20/3-4^IV) may represent an imitation of Gunnlaugr. — [8] hôttr ‘style’: The word, as used here, does not have its more usual meaning of metrical form or stanza-form (despite Sveinbjörn Rafnsson 1994, 737) but instead relates, as the context shows, to figurative language. Comparable in sense is hætti in I 94/10.

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. 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.
5. 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.
6. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
7. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson. 1994. ‘Merlínússpá í sögulegu samhengi. Fáein drög til sögulegrar gagnrýni’. In Sverrir Tómasson 1994, II, 734-42.
8. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
9. Internal references
10. 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 26 April 2024)
11. Not published: do not cite (EGils Guðkv 20^IV)