GunnLeif Merl II 2^VIII

Sagðr vas lýðum         ok landrekum
myrk* at ráða         mǫrg rǫk fyrir.
Kærr vas hann kristnu         kynni þjóðar;
vasat á moldu         maðr vitrari.

Sagðr vas at ráða mǫrg myrk* rǫk fyrir lýðum ok landrekum. Hann vas kærr kristnu kynni þjóðar; vitrari maðr vasat á moldu.

He was said to interpret many obscure signs before the people and rulers. He was dear to the Christian family of people; there was not a wiser man on earth.

Mss: Hb(49r) (Bret)

Readings: [1] Sagðr: ‘Sagði’ refreshed from Sagðr Hb    [3] myrk*: myrkt Hb    [5, 6] kristnu kynni: kristin kyni Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 11, Skj BII, 10, Skald II, 6, NN §§90, 91; Bret 1848-9, II, 14 (Bret st. 2); Hb 1892-6, 272; Merl 2012, 66-7.

Notes: [1] sagðr vas ‘he was said’: Merl 2012 adopts the refreshed reading sagði ‘[he] said’, but this is to put too much faith in the refresher, when traces of earlier <r> are still visible. Instead of the ms.’s ‘var’ (normalised here to vas), Merl 2012 reads við, translated as im Hinblick auf ‘in respect of’. But the refresher’s abbreviation directly above ms. <v>, interpreted as ‘-ið’ by Merl 2012, is followed to the right by a clearly legible unrefreshed abbreviation for ‘-ar’, as is in fact conceded by Merl 2012. — [3] myrk* ‘obscure’: Emended by Scheving (followed in Bret 1848-9 and Skj B) from ms. myrkt (refreshed). Kock (NN §90; Skald) treats myrkt and mǫrg rǫk as in apposition (Han sades spå … om dunkla ting, om mångt, som skulle ske ‘he was said to prophesy … about obscure matters, about many things that were destined to occur’), but, while this construal is not impossible, Kock (as often: cf. Note to ll. 5-6 below) assumes that apposition is a more prevalent stylistic feature in skaldic poetry than in fact is the case; also, the sense and syntax yielded by Scheving’s emendation are clearly superior. Conceivable, with Merl 2012, would be retention of myrkt in the sense ‘darkly’, taken with the verb, thus at ráða myrkt mǫrg rǫk ‘to interpret darkly many signs’. But this would seem an odd disparagement of the popular prophet who is being praised in this very context and, once again, relies overmuch on the accuracy of the refresher. Cf I 9/1-4 and I 100/9-10. — [5-6]: These lines emphasise that Merlin is beloved of Christians, probably a point it would have been important for Gunnlaugr to establish, when contemporary commentators were apt to fret about Merlin’s diabolic pedigree (Crick 2011, 77). The ms. reading kristin (refreshed) is emended to kristnu by Scheving, followed in Bret 1848-9, Skj B, Merl 2012 and this edn. In this edn the ms.’s ‘kyni’ is emended to kynni, dat. sg. of the n. noun kynni in the sense ‘family, stock, lineage’ (Fritzner: kynni 2); geminate <n> is not necessarily shown in Haukr’s orthography (Hb 1892-6, xiii). These minor adjustments produce two metrical A-lines. Skj B on the other hand, presumably to improve the metre of l. 5,  transposes kristnu and kyni, followed by Merl 2012, but this leaves l. 6 metrically deficient. Kock (NN §91) instead proposes to read kristni, í kyni, interpreting ll. 5-6 as han var de kristne kär, var omtyckt ibland folket ‘he was dear to the Christians, was well-regarded amongst the people’. But the double construction, mixing uses of dat. case with and without prepositions, militates against this solution. — [7-8]: De Vries (1964-7, II, 75 n. 181) compares Gríp 52/5‑6.

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. NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
5. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
9. Crick, Julia C. 2011. ‘Geoffrey and the Prophetic Tradition’. In Echard 2011, 67-82.
10. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
11. Internal references
12. 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 19 April 2024)
13. Not published: do not cite ()