GunnLeif Merl I 52VIII/7 — vargar ‘wolves’
‘Sprett es í miðju mótpenningum;
mun gǫrst gleðu glatask ránsemi.
Tennr munu gylðis trausti numnar,
ok léons vargar verða at fiskum
hvassir hvelpar hvaltúnum í.
‘Sprett es í miðju mótpenningum; ránsemi gleðu mun gǫrst glatask. Tennr gylðis munu numnar trausti, ok vargar léons, hvassir hvelpar, verða at fiskum í hvaltúnum.
‘There will be a split down the middle of stamped pennies; the thieving ways of the kite will completely come to a stop. The wolf’s teeth will be deprived of their strength, and the lion’s wolves, keen cubs, will become fish in the whale-enclosures [SEA].
notes
[7] vargar léons ‘the lion’s wolves’: Emended from ms. ‘leó vargar’ (not refreshed) in the present edn. This yields a free-standing noun with initial v-, needed to carry alliteration with verða in l. 8. Presupposed is Gunnlaugr’s use of a double form of the gen. case of léo, i.e. léons beside léonis. For the form cf. GSvert Hrafndr 4/7IV, ljóns ‘of the lion’. The nom. pl. hvelpar ‘cubs’, rendering Geoffrey’s catuli, is construed as standing in apposition to vargar. The solutions adopted by previous eds do not reckon with the deficiency in alliteration. Bret has léo-vargar ‘Lövevargens’ (‘of the lion-wolf’), evidently interpreted as a sg., governing hvassir hvelpar, thus ‘the keen cubs of the lion-wolf’, an analysis also adopted by Merl 2012 (independently?), while Skj B (followed by Skald) emends to léo-varga ‘of the lion-wolves’. Use of the potentially pejorative word vargr ‘wolf, outcast’ in relation to the children of Henry I may be explained as reflecting the censorious attitude to them displayed by the chroniclers (on which see Note to [All]). For attestations of the latter meaning in skaldic poetry cf. Mark Eirdr 6/1II, ÞSjár Þórdr 2/1I, Eskál Vell 7/6I. The handling of vowel quantities in the borrowed word léó is uncertain. LP has léó, perhaps reflecting the fact that a long first vowel is metrically required in II 57/7. But contrast Skj B, CVC, Fritzner: leó, while Skald has léo-. The second vowel appears to be short in Anon Pl 23/2VII and Svtjúg Lv 1/8I. Perhaps this foreign word could be flexibly treated to achieve correct metre, or alternatively the present attestation could represent an anticipation of ModIcel. monosyllabic ljón (for possible parallel instances see ONP: ljón sb. m., ljón sb. n.). The vowel quantities in Latin and Greek are short followed by long (Lewis and Short 1879: leō; Liddell and Scott 1940: λέων).