GunnLeif Merl I 54VIII/4 — bœnir ‘prayers’
‘Þá munu gumnar gráta á nóttum
ok þjóð gera þægjar bœnir.
Þá munu hǫlðar til himins kosta;
fá it langa líf lǫfðar nýtir.
‘Þá gumnar munu gráta á nóttum ok þjóð gera þægjar bœnir. Þá munu hǫlðar kosta til himins; nýtir lǫfðar fá it langa líf.
‘Then men will weep at night and people will say acceptable prayers. Then men will strive after heaven; worthy men will obtain the long life.
notes
[4] bœnir ‘prayers’: This reading in Merl deviates markedly from omnia ‘all things’, the reading of all mss of DGB so far collated. Various possible explanations can be suggested. It may represent an innovation on Gunnlaugr’s part, either made freely in order to improve the sense or because he read omnia as some form of oratio ‘prayer’. Possibly too, however, the reading occurred in his source ms., whether through scribal emendation or even as a superior reading originating in the archetype. Universal prayer on the part of the nation was not unknown in English history. In 1009, a state of national emergency was declared by Archbishop Wulfstan, requiring that everyone go to church barefoot and make their confession, fast for three days and distribute the surplus food as alms – an initative with precedents in earlier Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon practice (Keynes 2008, 184-8; Cubitt 2013, 69). Gunnlaugr (or Geoffrey, if the reading was his) could have extrapolated from such an event. By contrast, the commentaries interpret omnia ‘all things’ as ‘all kinds of expedients to combat evil’ (cf. Hammer 1935, 16; Blacker 1996, 39-40, 2005, 61; Wille 2015, 160-1). — [4] þægjar bœnir ‘acceptable prayers’: The adj. þægr is characteristic of homiletic prose texts, used (sometimes in collocation with bœnir) to mean ‘acceptable to God’ (ONP: þǽgr) and this also appears to be the sense in which it is used in poetry (contrast LP: þægr); cf. I 59/8.