Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

GunnLeif Merl II 3VIII/2 — at ‘to’

Leita ýtir         orð at vanda
— viti flotnar þat —         frœðis þessa.
Heldr fýsumk nú         fornra minna
miðsamlig rǫk         mǫnnum segja.

Ýtir leita at vanda orð þessa frœðis; flotnar viti þat. Heldr fýsumk nú segja mǫnnum miðsamlig rǫk fornra minna.

Men seek to elaborate on the words of this lore; let people realise that. Rather, I now hasten to tell men of momentous signs from ancient memories.

notes

[2] at vanda orð ‘to elaborate on the words’: The inf. vanda can be glossed as either ‘make elaborately, take care over, elaborate on’ (CVC: vanda I 2; Fritzner: vanda 3) or ‘make difficulties concerning, baulk at, object to’ (CVC: vanda II 2; Fritzner: vanda 1, 2). The former is the only usage documented for poetry in LP: vanda and is that adopted here, as in Bret 1848-9 (söge pyntelige Ord ‘seek out embellished diction’) and Skj B (identical). Gunnlaugr may possibly be noting the inclination of other poets to produce elaborate renderings of the Prophecies, thereby perhaps anticipating the attitude to obscurity exhibited by the C14th composer of Lilja (Anon Lil 98VII), which expresses disapproval of poetry composed in an elaborate (vandan) style. Kock’s interpretation, noggrant återjiva ‘render exactly’, is derived from the same sub-sense of vanda. Although the sense ‘make difficulties concerning’ is otherwise undocumented in poetry up to and including Gunnlaugr’s time, a case could perhaps be made for it insofar as Geoffrey’s material was undoubtedly objected to by some contemporaries. External to Merl, scepticism concerning Geoffrey’s historiography culminates in the strenuous objections expressed by William of Newburgh (b. 1135/6, d. in or after 1198). In his Historia rerum Anglicarum, apparently composed between 1196 and 1198 (cf. Taylor 2004), William writes (Liebermann and Pauli 1885, 225): Qui etiam maiori ausu cuiusdam Merlini divinationes fallacissimas, quibus utique de proprio plurimum adiecit, dum eas in Latinum transfunderet, tanquam authenticas et inmobili veritate subnixas prophetias vulgavit ‘Furthermore, with greater temerity he promulgated the utterly false predictions of a certain Merlin, to which assuredly he added more of his own, then rendered them into Latin, as if they were authentic prophecies founded on an unwavering veracity’. Gunnlaugr’s parenthesis flotnar viti þat ‘let people realise that’ (l. 3) could be understood as the poet’s honest disclosure and advance warning to his audience that such objections have been raised. At the same time, he differentiates his own attitude from that of the persons who would make difficulties by stating that he means to launch right into his account.

grammar

Verbs: Preterite-present verbs

The present tense of these verbs is like the past tense of strong verbs, and their past tense is weak.

eigamegakunnaskulumunumuna
indic.
pres.
sing.


pl.
1st
2nd
3rd
1st
2nd
3rd
á
átt
á
eigum
eiguð
eigu

mátt

megum
meguð
megu
kann
kannt
kann
kunnum
kunnuð
kunnu
skal
skalt
skal
skulum
skuluð
skulu
mun
munt
mun
munum
munuð
munu
man
mant
man
munum
munið
muna
indic. past stem
subj. pres. stem
subj. past stem
átt-
eig-
ætt-
mátt-
meg-
mætt-
kunn-
kunn-
kynn-
skyld-
skyl-
skyld-
mund-
myn-
mynd-
mund-
mun-
mynd-
Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Word in text

This view shows information about an instance of a word in a text.