GunnLeif Merl I 56^VIII

‘Einn sitr nýtastr         Néústríe
Englandi at         auðar skelfir.
Þó ’ro siklingar         sunnan komnir
fimm eða fleiri         foldu at ráða.

‘{Einn nýtastr skelfir auðar} Néústríe sitr at Englandi. Þó ’ro fimm eða fleiri siklingar komnir sunnan at ráða foldu.

‘{The one worthiest shaker of riches} [GENEROUS MAN] of Neustria will preside over England. Yet five kings or more have come from the south to rule the land.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Readings: [5] ’ro: om. Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 30, Skj BII, 35, Skald II, 22, NN §3143; Bret 1848-9, II, 58 (Bret st. 124); Hb 1892-6, 280; Merl 2012, 170-1.

Notes: [All]: This stanza may represent a rationalisation of and extrapolation from Geoffrey’s prophecy 16 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 149.97-9; cf. Wright 1988, 105): Exin de primo in quartum, de quarto in tercium, de tercio in secundum rotabitur pollex in oleo ‘Then from the first to the fourth, from the fourth to the third, from the third to the second, the thumb shall roll in oil’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 148). This enigmatic passage presumably refers to the anointing of successive Norman kings, as recognised in some of the commentaries (Hammer 1935, 30). But other commentators were bewildered by this passage, as emerges e.g. from the explication pollex in oleo, hoc est non difficultate, sed gratia quasi (Hammer 1940, 418) ‘thumb in oil, i.e. not with difficulty but as if with pleasure’, and Gunnlaugr could well have shared their bewilderment. Instead Gunnlaugr, or more probably his source ms., appears to extrapolate from the passage so as to praise Henry II (r. 1133-89); this interpretation may have been assisted by annotation or commentary of the kind we find in John of Cornwall’s version of the Prophetiae Merlini. John speaks of quartum seu quintum ‘the fourth or the fifth’ in the sequence of kings (Curley 1982, 234), where Gunnlaugr speaks of ‘five or more’, and this shared vagueness as to the exact number of Norman kings (down to John’s and Gunnlaugr’s source’s respective times of writing?) may reflect the fact that Henry I’s son and designated successor William Adelin, who perished in the White Ship (see I 52 Note to [All]) but had been crowned previously, was sometimes counted as the fourth, with Stephen then taken to be the fifth (Curley 1982, 244; cf. Faletra 2012, 333) and Henry II the sixth; the list could be stretched to a seventh after the advanced coronation of Henry II’s son (also Henry) in 1170 (Poole 1955, 212-13). — [1] einn nýtastr ‘the one worthiest’: That is to say, ‘worthiest of all’. On this idiom see NN §3143A. The idea seems to be that the current ruler (Henry II) surpasses the previous kings of the Norman dynasty, a sentiment no doubt reflecting the political position of Gunnlaugr’s source, in the light of Henry’s conduct subsequent to the death of Thomas Becket in 1170. Some of the commentaries take the same view of Henry, e.g. (Hammer 1940, 419): sed in aetate sua stabilis et perfectus erit per clara merita, fama praeconante de eo ‘but in his old age he will be stable and perfect through his manifest merits, with fame proclaiming about him’. — [2] Néústríe ‘of Neustria’: Here Gunnlaugr uses the Latin first declension gen. sg. form, no doubt with dissyllabic realisation of <eu> (cf. I 61/9); thus emendation to Neustríe ór (Bret 1848-9, followed by Skj B) is unnecessary (cf. NN §3143B). Neustria is Geoffrey’s standard pseudonym for Normandy and is always retained by Gunnlaugr. — [5] ’ro ‘have’: Lit. ‘are’. Supplied in Bret 1848-9 and Skj B. Kock (NN §3143C), tacitly followed by Merl 2012, instead construes ll. 5-8 as Þó ráða fimm eða fleiri siklingar, sunnan komnir, at foldu, translated as dock styra i landet fem eller flera söderifrån komna furstar ‘Yet five or more rulers, come from the south, reign in the land’. But if at functions as a postponed prep. it should occupy a metrical rise, which is impossible as the line stands in the ms.

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. 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. 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.
8. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
9. Poole, Austin Lane. 1955. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087-1216. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
10. Faletra, Michael A. 2012. ‘Merlin in Cornwall: The Source and Contexts of John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini’. JEGP 111, 304-38.
11. Curley, Michael J. 1982. ‘A New Edition of John of Cornwall’s Prophetia Merlini’. Speculum, 217-49.
12. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
13. Hammer, Jacob. 1935. ‘A Commentary on the Prophetia Merlini (Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Book VII)’. Speculum 10, 3-30.
14. Hammer, Jacob. 1940. ‘A Commentary on the Prophetia Merlini (Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Book VII)’. Speculum 15, 409-31.
15. Internal references
16. 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 16 April 2024)