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Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in theOld Norse language, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century. Old Norse poetry is associated with the area now referred to asScandinavia. Much Old Norse poetry was originally preserved in oral culture, but the Old Norse language ceased to be spoken and later writing tended to be confined to history rather than for new poetic creation, which is normal for anextinct language. Modern knowledge of Old Norse poetry is preserved by what was written down. Most of the Old Norse poetry that survives was composed or committed to writing inIceland, after refined techniques for writing (such as the use of vellum, parchment paper, pens, and ink) were introduced—seemingly contemporaneously with the introduction of Christianity: thus, the general topic area of Old Norse poetry may be referred to as Old Icelandic poetry in literature.
There are also around 122 verses preserved in Swedishrune inscriptions, 54 in Norwegian and 12 in Danish. (SeeEggjum stone.)
Poetry played an important role in the social and religious world of theVikings. InSkáldskaparmál,Snorri Sturluson, recounts the myth of howOdin brought themead of poetry toAsgard. Poetry is referred to in such terms as 'the drink of the raven-god (= Odin)' even in the oldest preserved poetry, which is an indicator of its significance within the ancient Scandinavian culture.
Old Norse poetry developed from the common Germanicalliterative verse, and as such has many commonalities withOld English,Old Saxon, andOld High German poetry, includingalliteration, poetic circumlocutions termedkennings, and an expansive vocabulary of poetic synonyms, termedheiti.
Old Norse poetry is conventionally, and somewhat arbitrarily, split into two types:Eddaic poetry (also known asEddic poetry) andSkaldic poetry. Eddaic poetry refers to poems on themes of mythology or ancient heroes, composed in simpler meters (see below) and with anonymous authors. Most of the Eddaic poems are preserved in theCodex Regius manuscript, but a few others survive in manuscripts like the fragmentaryAM 748 I 4to. On the other hand, Skaldic poetry was usually written as praise for living kings and nobles, in more intricate meters and by known authors, known asskalds.
There are various types of Old Norse poetry which have been preserved. Of particular interest to scholars are the Skaldic and Eddic lays, or poems. However, also of interest are occasional verse from other sources. Skaldic and Eddic works have many commonalities besides being written in Old Norse, such as alliteration; however, scholars usually distinguish the two based on certain characteristics.
Scholarly distinction between Eddic and Skaldic works largely derives both from differing manuscript traditions and their typical matter and style.
One major distinction between Skaldic and Eddic poetry derives from the manuscript sources of the surviving known works. The large majority of works described as "Eddic" are found only in theCodex Regius, while a few of the poems found in it also survive in independent recensions in theAM 748 I 4to manuscript. Many verses from these Eddic poems are also quoted as evidence in theProse Edda. Some poems not found in the early Eddic manuscripts are still considered to be "Eddic" due to their style. Examples include the "Lay of Ríg" from theCodex Wormianus; the "Lay of Hyndla" from theFlatey-jarbók; and, the "Lay of Svipdag", which is only found in later, paper manuscripts (rather than vellum).[1] Together, all of these poems are grouped under the somewhat fluid term thePoetic Edda.[2]
Compared to the main skaldic style, the Eddic lays tend to be differentiated by three characteristics: the material deals with the mythology, ancient heroes, and ethics of the ancient Norse. Furthermore, the Eddic style is characterized by relative simplicity in terms of style and meter and, "like the later folk songs and ballads, they are anonymous and objective, never betraying the feelings or attitudes of their authors."[3] In contrast, the skaldic poetry tends to concern itself with contemporary events and personalities, although also sometimes dealing with or alluding to myth and legend; skaldic poetry avoids direct narration; and, it is often known who the authors of the skaldic verses are along with their dates, unlike the Eddic poetry.[4]
Old Norse poetry has many metrical forms (Old Norse:hættir). They range from the ancient and relatively simplefornyrðislag ('air of ancient utterings'), closely related to theOld English meter, to the innovative and complexdróttkvætt (Old Norse:dróttkvæðr háttr 'court-spoken meter').
In Eddic, or Eddaic, poetry, the metric structures are for the most part either in the form offornyrðislag ("old story"/"epic meter") orljóðaháttr ("song"/"chant meter"). Bothfornyrðislag andljóðaháttr verse form share similarities; such as, partial alliteration of stressed and grammatically important syllables, division of the verse into half lines or full lines and couplets, with fixed numbers of lines, line lengths determined by the number of stressed syllables (called "lifts"), and the linking of full lines or couplets by means of alliteration.[5]
A verse form close to that ofBeowulf was used onrunestones and in the Old NorsePoetic Edda; in Norse, it was calledfornyrðislag, which means "old story metre".Fornyrðislag is the more commonly used Eddic meter, and is often used for narrative poems.
Fornyrðislag formally consists of eight line stanzas. Each line of the stanza has two vocally stressed syllables, also known as "lifts", with a somewhat arbitrary number of other syllables. Through the use of alliteration, lines join into couplets. Generally, in the first line offornyrðislag, both "lifts", or stressed syllables alliterate. In the second line of any given couplet, only one of the two stressed syllables is alliterated, usually the first—this is the "head-stave" (or,hǫfuðstafr).[6]
The word "line" and "couplet" need some clarification. Essentially, in fornyrðislag and many other forms, Norse poets treated each "half-line" of Germanicalliterative verse as a separate line. The Norse "couplet" is basically a single Germanic line, a pair of half-lines joined by alliteration. Thus, a Norse fornyrðislag stanza of eight lines corresponds to four lines of Old-English alliterative verse.[a] Another difference between the Norse system and the general Germanic pattern is that the Norse poets, unlike the Old English poets, tended to treat each "couplet", or Germanic line, as a complete syntactic unit, avoidingenjambment where a thought begun on one line continues through the following lines; only seldom do they begin a new sentence in the second half-line. This example is from theWaking of Angantyr:
Vaki, Angantýr!
vekr þik Hervǫr,
eingadóttir
ykkr Sváfu!
Selðu órhaugi
hvassan mæki
þann'sSvafrlama
slógu dvergar.
Fornyrðislag had a variant form calledmálaháttr ("meter of speeches"), which adds an unstressed syllable to each half-line, making six to eight (sometimes up to ten) unstressed syllables per line. This meter is similar to that used in theOld SaxonHeliand. Conversely, another variant,kviðuháttr, has only three syllables in its odd half-lines (but four in the even ones).[7]
Ljóðaháttr ("chant" or "ballad" metre) is astanzaic verse form, organized into four-line stanzas. The first and third lines were standard lines of Germanic alliterative verse with four lifts and two or three alliterations, separated into two half-lines with cæsura; the second and fourth lines had three lifts and two alliterations, and no cæsura. This example is fromFreyr's lament inSkírnismál:
Lǫng es nótt, lǫng es ǫnnur,
hvé mega ekþreyjaþrjár?
Opt mérmánaðr minni þótti
en sjáhalfahýnótt.
Long is one night, long is the next;
how can I bear three?
A month has often seemed less to me
than this half night of longing.
Because of its structure, which comprises clearly defined rhythmicstanzas,ljóðaháttr lends itself to dialogue and discourse. There were a number of variant stanza forms based onljóðaháttr, includinggaldralag ("incantation meter"), which adds a fifth short (three-lift) line at the end of the stanza; in this form, the fifth line usually echoes the fourth.
Eddic poems have other common characteristics besides verse form. The Eddic poetry lays are diverse; however, three important common characteristics can be described: mythology, ethics, and heroic lore.[3]
One major topic of Eddic poetry is mythology. The mythological topics of Eddic poetry most importantly includeNorse mythology, however other types of mythology are also involved, including various other Germanic traditions, probable Christian ideas, and a wide range of other possibilities.
Many of the Eddic lays can be characterized as focused on ethical topics.
Eddic poetry is to indebted narratives describing heroes, which was part of a long oral tradition, as well as textual.
The skaldic forms were so called because of the existence of a socially defined group of which the individual members were generally known by the termskald, orscold, or by similarly linguistically related terms, in Old Norse and particularly closely related languages.[8] Basically, the skald was a type of poet.
In Skaldic poetry, the structures used tend to be complex,[9] evolved from the common Germanic poetic tradition. Around a hundred meters are known, many only from Snorri Sturluson'sHáttatal.
One of the simpler skaldic meters waskviðuháttr, a variant of fornyrðislag with alternating lines of 3 and 4 syllables, used in genealogical poems such as Þjóðólfr ór Hvíni'sYnglingatal andEyvindr Skáldaspillir'sHáleygjatal. Other Skaldic meters, sch asdróttkvætt andHrynhenda were more complex..
Dróttkvætt (meaning ‘courtly metre’,[10]) added internal rhymes (so calledhendings) to its stanza structures. The resulting verse form goes well beyond the requirements of Germanic alliterative verse and strongly resembles Celtic (Irish and Welsh) verse forms. Thedróttkvætt stanza had eight lines, each having usually three lifts and almost invariably six syllables. Although other stress patterns appear, the verse is predominantly trochaic. The last two syllables in each line had to form a trochee[11] (there are a few specific forms which utilize a stressed word at line-end, such as in somedocked forms).[12][failed verification] In the very earliestdróttkvætt poetry (like theRagnarsdrápa orHaustlöng), the metrical requirements were somewhat looser, but by the 10th century the following specific requirements obtained for odd-numbered and even-numbered lines.[13]
In the odd-numbered lines (equivalent to the a-verse of the traditional alliterative line):
In the even lines (equivalent to the b-verse of the traditional alliterative line):
The requirements of the verse form were so demanding that occasionally the text of the poems had to run parallel, with one thread ofsyntax running through the on-side of the half-lines, and another running through the off-side. According to theFagrskinna collection ofsagas, KingHarald III of Norway uttered these lines ofdróttkvætt at theBattle of Stamford Bridge; the internal assonances are underlined and the alliterations emboldened:
Krjúpumvér fyrvápna,
(val-teigs), brǫkuneigi,
(svá bauðHildr), athjaldri,
(hald-orð), í bug skjaldar.
(Hátt baðmik), þar'smœttusk,
(men-skorð bera forðum),
hlakkaríss okhausar,
(hjalm-stall í gný malma).
The bracketed words in the poem ("so said the goddess of hawk-land, true of words") are syntactically separate but interspersed within the text of the rest of the verse. The elaboratekennings manifested here are also practically necessary in this complex and demanding form, as much to solve metrical difficulties as for the sake of vivid imagery. Intriguingly, the saga claims that Harald improvised these lines after he gave a lesser performance (infornyrðislag); Harald judged that verse bad and then offered this one in the more demanding form. While the exchange may be fictionalized, the scene illustrates the regard in which the form was held.
Mostdróttkvætt poems that survive appear in one or another of theNorse sagas; several of the sagas arebiographies of skaldic poets.
Hrynhenda orhrynjandi háttr ('the flowing verse-form') is a later development ofdróttkvætt with eight syllables per line instead of six, with the similar rules of rhyme and alliteration, although eachhrynhent-variant shows particular subtleties. It is first attested around 985 in the so-calledHafgerðingadrápa of which four lines survive (alliterants and rhymes bolded):
The author was said to be a Christian from theHebrides, who composed the poem asking God to keep him safe at sea. (Note: The third line is, in fact, over-alliterated. There should be exactly two alliterants in the odd-numbered lines.) The metre gained some popularity in courtly poetry, as the rhythm may sound more majestic than dróttkvætt.
We learn much about these in theHattatal:[14] Snorri gives for certain at least three different variant-forms of hrynhenda. These long-syllabled lines are explained by Snorri as beingextra-metrical in most cases: the "main" form never has alliterationor rhyme in the first 2 syllables of the odd-lines (i.e., rhymes always coming at the fourth-syllable), and the even-lines never have rhyme on the fifth/sixth syllables (i.e.: they cannot harbor rhyme in these places because they extra-metrical), the following couplet shows the paradigm:
[Note the juxtaposition of alliteration and rhyme of the even-line]
Then, the variant-forms show unsurprising dróttkvætt patterns overall; the main difference being that the first trochee of the odd-lines are technically not reckoned as extrametrical since they harboralliteration, but the even-lines' extra-metrical feature is more or less as the same. The 2nd form is the"troll-hrynjandi": in the odd-lines the alliteration is moved to thefirst metrical position (no longer "extra-metrical") while the rhyme remains the same (Snorri seems to imply thatfrumhending, which is placing a rhyme on the first syllable of any line, is preferably avoided in all these forms: the rhymes are always preferred asoddhending, "middle-of-the-line rhymes") — in the even-lines the rhyme and alliteration arenot juxtaposed, and this is a key feature of its distinction (the significant features only are marked in bold below):
The next form, which Snorri calls "ordinary/standard hrynhenda", is almost like a "combination" of the previous — alliteration always on the first metrical-position, and the rhymes in the odd-lines juxtaposed (all features in bold in this example):
There is one more form which is a bit different though seemed to be counted among the previous group by Snorri, calleddraughent. The syllable-count changes toseven (and, whether relevant to us or not, the second-syllable seems to be counted as the extra-metrical):
As one can see, there is very often clashing stress in the middle of the line (Vápnahrídvelta....//..Vægdarlausfeigum...., etc.), andoddhending seems preferred (as well as keeping alliterative and rhyming syllables separated, which likely has to do with the syllabic-makeup of the line).
