GunnLeif Merl I 75^VIII

‘Blæs Mistar vinr         ór nǫsum †tiossa†
þoku þvílíkri,         at þekr of ey.
Friðr es of fylkis         fastr lífdaga;
brestr eigi þá         ár í landi.

‘{Vinr Mistar} blæs ór nǫsum †tiossa† þoku þvílíkri, at þekr of ey. Friðr es fastr of lífdaga fylkis; ár brestr eigi þá í landi.

‘{The friend of Mist <valkyrie>} [WARRIOR] blows such a fog out of his nostrils … that it covers the island. Peace is fixed throughout the king’s lifetime; prosperity does not fail then in the land.

Mss: Hb(52r) (Bret)

Readings: [2] ór: ok Hb    [5] Friðr es: Friðr Hb

Editions: Skj AII, 32, Skj BII, 39, Skald II, 24-5, NN §105; Bret 1848-9, II, 65 (Bret st. 143); Hb 1892-6, 281; Merl 2012, 187-8.

Notes: [All]: Cf. DGB 115, prophecies 22 and 23 (Reeve and Wright 2007, 151.119-22; cf. Wright 1988, 106): qui ex naribus suis tantam efflabit nebulam quanta tota superficies insulae obumbrabitur. Pax erit in tempore suo et ubertate glebae multiplicabuntur segetes ‘who will breathe forth from his nostrils a cloud which will cover the whole surface of the island. There will be peace in his time and the rich soil will increase its crops’ (Reeve and Wright 2007, 150). — [1] vinr Mistar ‘the friend of Mist <valkyrie> [WARRIOR]’: By introducing a warrior-kenning where Geoffrey has qui ‘who’, Gunnlaugr emphasises the human represented by the allegorical goat-king of I 74. The absence of alliteration suggests, however, that Mist might have replaced some other heiti. Finnur Jónsson tentatively suggests Njǫrðr (LP: Mist). Kock (NN §105) proposes Nipt ‘sister, female relative’ as a valkyrie-heiti, but this is highly doubtful (see Þul Ásynja 5/3-4^III and Note there). It is also possible that this passage is more extensively damaged: see Notes to l. 2. — [2] ór ‘out of’: Emended from ms. ok (not refreshed) in Bret 1848-9, followed by subsequent eds. — [2] †tiossa† ‘…’: This ms. reading (not refreshed) has not so far been explained or convincingly emended; DGB supplies no guidance at this point. Skj B emends to brúsa ‘of the he-goat’. Bret 1848-9 already interprets it in that sense (af Bukkenæsen) but without emendation; CVC has the entry tjossi ‘he goat (?)’, citing the present passage as the unique attestation, but it does not feature in Fritzner or ONP and is no doubt a mere ghost-word. Kock (NN §105; Skald), followed by Merl 2012, emends to acc. *tjǫssu, taken as in apposition to þoku ‘fog’ and glossed as ‘wave’. He bases his case on inference from West Germanic words denoting ‘heavy wave, sea-swell’, but no such word is attested in Old Norse and Kock does not clarify how such a sense would relate to the context. — [5] es ‘is’: Added in Skj B, followed by subsequent eds.

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. 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.
6. CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
7. 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.
8. ONP = Degnbol, Helle et al., eds. 1989-. A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. 1-. Copenhagen: The Arnamagnæan Commission.
9. 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.
10. Bret 1848-9 = Jón Sigurðsson. 1848-9. ‘Trójumanna saga ok Breta sögur, efter Hauksbók, med dansk Oversættelse’. ÅNOH 1848, 3-215; 1849, 3-145.
11. 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.
12. Wright, Neil, ed. 1988. The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
13. Merl 2012 = Horst, Simone, ed. 2012. Merlínússpá. Merlins Prophezeiung. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag.
14. Internal references
15. 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)
16. Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Ásynja heiti 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 771.