GunnLeif Merl I 65VIII
Russell Poole (ed.) 2017, ‘Breta saga 133 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson, Merlínusspá I 65)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 103.
‘Svífr it hvassa hagl tvíviðar
— hnígr hǫlða lið — hart af strengjum.
En geyst hinig gaflok fara;
megut Skǫglar ský við skotum halda.
‘{It hvassa hagl tvíviðar} svífr hart af strengjum; lið hǫlða hnígr. En gaflok fara geyst hinig; {ský Skǫglar} megut halda við skotum.
‘{The cutting hail of the bow} [ARROWS] flies hard from the strings; the troop of men sinks down. And javelins travel this way ferociously; {the clouds of Skǫgul <valkyrie>} [SHIELDS] cannot withstand the volleys.
Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)
Editions: Skj AII, 31, Skj BII, 37, Skald II, 23; Bret 1848-9, II, 61-2 (Bret st. 133); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 178.
Notes: [All]: Battle commonplaces without a substantive source in Geoffrey’s text (cf. Bret 1848-9). These extend from this stanza to st. 69. Although all the events described in these stanzas are represented as taking place in the future, the present tense has been used in their translation to convey a sense of immediacy. — [2] tvíviðar ‘of the bow’: Cf. Þul Boga l. 2III and Eil Þdr 20/5III. — [6] gaflok ‘javelins’: Sometimes spelt gaflak; word for a light spear, cf. Þul Spjóts 1. 7III.
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- 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.
- 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 24 April 2024)
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Spjóts heiti 1’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 816.
- Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórsdrápa 20’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 119.
- Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Boga heiti’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 821. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3199> (accessed 24 April 2024)
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