Note 640 — Chapter IX · THE KINGDOM OF SCOTIA PASSES INTO FEUDAL SCOTLAND.
Reading edition
Chron. Man, ed. Munch, p. 7. The metrical prophecy attributed to Merlin, which seems to have been written not long after, has some lines evidently referring to Magnus’s conquest of the Isles, which may be thus translated (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 117):—
Scotia will above all bewail the achievements of a famous leader,
Who will annex to himself lands bounded on all sides by the ocean.
The land, widowed of its regal lord, will be vacant
Twice three years and nine months.
Its ancient kings, just, bountiful, and rich,
Graceful and mighty, will Scotia mournfully bewail.
As Merlin says, after victorious kings
The royal sceptre will be deprived of a sovereign’s rule.
Through time to come, Albania, alas! by its own crime subdued,
Will serve a monarch of Anglic race.
That it will breathe again after the death of the miser king
The ancient sibyl in ancient prophecy foretells;
For a northern king of a huge fleet possessed
Will press the Scots with famine, fury, and with sword.
The foreign race at length will perish by the Scoti’s plot,
In battle that Noric chief shall fall.
The Noric chief who acquires lands bounded on all sides by the sea and reigns six years and nine months is obviously Magnus, and the ‘rex Angligenus’ Eadgar.