GunnLeif Merl II 51^VIII

‘Verðr á foldu,’         kvað inn fróði halr,
‘styrjǫld mikil,         stórar ógnir,
víg ok vélar,         vargǫld ok kǫld
hrími hvers konar         hjǫrtu lýða.

‘Mikil styrjǫld verðr á foldu, stórar ógnir, víg ok vélar, vargǫld ok hjǫrtu lýða kǫld hrími hvers konar,’ kvað inn fróði halr.

‘A great war will come to pass on the earth, great terrors, battle and treacheries, the time of the wolf and hearts of men [will grow] cold with frost of every kind,’ said the wise man.

Mss: Hb(50v) (Bret)

Editions: Skj AII, 19, Skj BII, 20, Skald II, 13; Bret 1848-9, II, 34; (Bret st. 51); Hb 1892-6, 276; Merl 2012, 113-14.

Notes: [6] vargǫld ‘the time of the wolf’: De Vries (1964-7, II, 75 n. 179) compares Vsp 45/9. — [6, 8] hjǫrtu … kǫld ‘hearts … cold’: The  interpretation here follows that implicit in Skj B, with the verb verða ‘will grow’ understood from verðr in l. 1, the adj. kǫld construed as nom. pl. from kaldr ‘cold’ qualifying the n. nom. pl. hjǫrtu ‘hearts’ and the noun hrími ‘with frost’ construed as an instr. dat. from hrím ‘frost’. Bret 1848-9 (also Merl 2012, presumably independently) appears to construe kǫld as an otherwise unattested noun ‘cold’, in parallel with vargǫld, etc., but that leads to deficient syntax, with hjǫrtu seemingly understood as a virtual dat. i Hjerter ‘in hearts’. Similarly Merl 2012 im Herzen ‘in hearts’, but there hrími is construed as the nom. of the weak m. noun corresponding to n. hrím. — [7]: This line is in the metre málaháttr.

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. Vries, Jan de. 1964-7. Altnordische Literaturgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Grundriss der germanischen Philologie 15-16. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
8. Internal references
9. 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 27 April 2024)
10. Not published: do not cite ()