GunnLeif Merl I 92VIII/7 — Mundíu ‘of the Alps’
‘Munu kapps mǫnnum kvánfǫng boðin:
eru ekkjur þar orðnar margar.
En á kǫldum kall þeira næst
menn Mundíu montum heyra.’
‘Kvánfǫng munu boðin mǫnnum kapps: margar eru orðnar ekkjur þar. En menn heyra kall þeira næst á kǫldum montum Mundíu.’
‘Marriages will be offered to men of bravery: many [women] have become widows there. But men will hear their cry afterwards on the cold mountains of the Alps.’
notes
[7] á kǫldum montum Mundíu ‘on the cold mountains of the Alps’: Here DGB has montibus Alpium ‘on the mountains of the Alps’. The name Mundía used by Gunnlaugr (and also recorded in Sigv Lv 18/1I; see Note there) can be traced back to *Montgiu = Fr. Mont Joux < Lat. Mons Jovis, lit. ‘mountain of Jove’, ‘Great S. Bernard’; the Latin name derives from the presence of a Roman temple to Jupiter Poeninus at the site (Meissner 1903, 193-4, cf. LP: Mundio). It would have been known from pilgrimage itineraries (Meissner 1903, 193-4 and references there given) but it was early generalised, as in the present stanza, so as to denote the Alps as a whole (Meissner 1903, 196).