GunnLeif Merl II 15VIII/6 — danski ‘Danish’
‘Þeir þjótandi þrjár of hrœra
búnir at berjask Bretlands eyjar.
Þá mun vakna viðr inn danski
ok manns rǫddu mæla sjalfri.
‘Þjótandi, búnir at berjask, of hrœra þeir þrjár eyjar Bretlands. Þá mun inn danski viðr vakna ok mæla sjalfri rǫddu manns.
‘Wailing, prepared to fight, they will stir up the three islands of Britain. Then the Danish wood will awake and speak with a man’s actual voice.
notes
[6] inn danski viðr ‘the Danish wood’: Possibly to be identified as the Forest of Dean, located in the western part of Gloucestershire (see CPB I, 156; Poole 1987, 276; Townend 1998, 29-31); cf. Ótt Knútdr 10/8I and Note there. Geoffrey’s reference to this wood may reflect its status as the centre of iron-working to equip military expeditions (Poole 1955, 81-2). The reading danorum ‘of the Danes’ is found in the R ms. of the First Variant Version (Wright 1988, 108), as noted by Merl 2012; cf. the Anglo-Norman decasyllabic rendering (Blacker 2005, 44) les bois de Danemarche ‘the woods of Denmark’. But Gunnlaugr does not appear to be basing himself on R, which contains many erroneous readings not reflected by Merl, or indeed on the First Variant Version in general: see I 39 Note to [All]. He might have found the reading included as a variant in his source ms. (cf. I 41 Note to [All], II 25 Note to [All]) or instead have adapted Lat. daneum or a different variant reading such as danerium independently, perhaps aware of Óttarr svarti’s reference to a locality in England as Danaskógar (Ótt Knútdr 8/8I). For an identification of this locality as the Forest of Dean see CPB I, 156, Poole (1987, 276). For interpretation of Latin place-names on Gunnlaugr’s part, cf. II 9 Note to [All].