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1882
Volume 20, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1782-7183
  • E-ISSN: 2030-9902

Abstract

Abstract

This article examines Gunnlaugr Leifsson’s by placing it in conversation with the socio-historical context of both its creation and the creation of its source text, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s . Both works situate themselves as translations navigating cultural and linguistic boundaries. I begin by discussing Geoffrey’s as a syncretic text, which plays with both the Welsh and Latinate prophetic and historical traditions. Next, I place in Þingeyrar Monastery around the year 1200, where I argue that the intellectual milieu was distinctly outward-looking as the monks produced translations and original writings in Old Norse-Icelandic and Latin. The Benedictine monastery of Þingeyrar was a centre for saga-writing which engaged with both domestic and foreign literature. I read as an adaptation that attempts to draw connections between the Nordic prophecies of and the Brittonic prophecies of Merlin. By reading in its historical context and by approaching it as a conscious adaptation of Geoffrey’s poem, I argue that Gunnlaugr navigates a continuity of tradition with Old Norse-Icelandic literature while rethinking how Icelanders attempt to incorporate themselves into the larger European literary and historical traditions. navigates a worldview in which Icelanders were geographically and ideologically marginalized, but, like the British of Geoffrey’s legendary history, works to renegotiate Icelandic literature’s place in the larger contemporary European literary conversation. Gunnlaugr not only successfully remoulds Old Norse-Icelandic prophetic and apocalyptic material by linguistically and thematically connecting Merlin’s prophecies to , but ultimately connects this Old Norse-Icelandic literary tradition with perhaps the most popular European author of the twelfth century.

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2025-12-05

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/content/journals/10.1484/J.VMS.5.142575
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Gunnlaugr Leifsson; Merlínusspá, Geoffrey of Monmouth; Prophetiae Merlini, Þingeyrar; translation

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