Old Norse Poetry

Inspired by recent posts by ExecutivePagan at The Executive Pagan http://executivepagan.wordpress.com/ and, it goes without saying,  Kayleigh at Kallisti, An Apple in Pandemonium http://kallisti.writingkaye.com/,   I have decided to (finally) take a look at Old Norse poetry.

Though this comes out as a rather long article, it is lamentably incomplete. The subject is vast enough for many books – one poor blog entry cannot hope to do it justice – especially at the hands of a dilettante like me. For any resultant mistakes I apologize and I invite correction.

Norse poetry is unlike anything the average English speaker has before encountered. Especially in this day and age of “freeform” poetry, something as carefully constructed and complex as skaldic poetry is certain, at first glance, to seem overwhelming. Yet a properly constructed poem is a work of art, not least of which because of its subject matter, the rich northern mythos.

Poetry is, for the Norse, an íflrótt, a skill that has to be learned. It is a craft, something that is shaped and brought into existence. Egil says its raw material comes from the poet’s hugar fylgsni ‘hiding place of thought’, “from which it must be dragged or driven” and there “is a location within the mind of a sacred store of words and emotions, the potentialities for poetry, which have to be shaped and projected by the poet’s craft”  (Alisan Finlay, “Pouring Óðinn’s Mead: An Antiquarian Theme?” Proceedings of the 11th International  Saga Conference, 92-93 ).

Mia Berg writes of the relationship between myth and poetry,

While myth is a product of a whole culture, a collective product, poetry, as art, is an individual expression. That means for instance that poetry is creating its own autonomous poetic universes. By way of personification and anthropomorphism, myth projects its phenomena into narratives in an outer world, and thereby focusses on what is general or common. Poetry, as a symbolic language, rather tries to show the general or common through the individual. When using material from the mythological tradition, poetry will, by a process of poetic transformation, also try to liberate itself from the very same tradition. As literature poetry is thus using mythological motives for its own purpose (Mai Elisabeth Berg, “Myth or Poetry, a Brief Discussion of Some Motives in the Elder Edda,”  Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference, 36).

There are two classes of poetry, Eddic and skaldic (alliterative). The difference between the two is one of degrees. Strict rules of composition govern each, but the rules for skáldic strophes are much more complex than Eddic. Skaldic poetry is rarely anonymous while Eddic poetry is “usually anonymous and devoted to heroic, gnomic, and mythological themes from the past” (Gade, The Structure of Old Norse Drottkvaett Poetry (Islandica) (Cornell University Press 1995),  1).

Within those two classes, there are many different types of poems, and this can be confusing, but some clue as to their genre can be had from their name: Kviða generally denotes a narrative poem; mál a poem in dialogue or didactic; Ijóð, söngr a lay or a song; tal a genealogical, drápa a laudatory heroic poem; rima a rhyme or rhapsody.

The Skáld

A poet and singer somewhat similar to the Irish bard. During the Viking Age, these skálds would travel widely, from hall to hall, and seek the patronage of jarls and kings. It is ironic that while we cannot assign authorship to many of the sagas they composed, yet we know the names of many skálds. For instance, though we have little of the poetry composed by those in attendance upon King Knut, we know, thanks to Snorri Sturlusson, their names. For others, the years have been kinder. For instance, Thorbjörn Hornklofi was a court favorite of King Harald Finehair, the antagonist of Egil’s Saga. Thorbjörn’s Haraldskvæði survived mostly intact, and others otherwise lost have surfaced in bits and pieces, quoted in other works.

Olrik says of the skaldic art:

The skaldic art is a type of poetic mathematics in which it is necessary to find the right answer to the problem of addition; there must not be too much nor too little, so that the ensuing image may accord with the taste of the time – otherwise the other skalds will soon call the poor workman to account. All the laws of verification must be observed, not only those referring to single lines and strophes; a proper drápa, which was the most ornate poetic creation, must also have the same number of stanzas in the introduction as in the conclusion, and the body of the poem must consist of sections presenting a uniform number of verses and a refrain, a stef, at the proper point. (Olrik, 158-159)

Some of the different types of poems (to be distinguished from different meters) are as follows:

drápa (pl. drápur) A skaldic praise poem. The word means literally “slaughter.” These are to be distinguished from erfidrápur, or “memorial lays” written post-death in honor of great leaders.

A praise poem has the following components: an introduction (stefjabálkr) punctuated by refrains (stef), and a close (sloemr). The introduction calls for those assembled to her the poem. Both introduction and close act as summaries of information about the subject, and contain generalized praise and comments, and might contain unrelated material as well. These last fell under the heading of læstir, or poetic slips or faults, and were to be avoided, since they had nothing to do contextually with the person being praised, or with their acts.

An example of this sort of error was that made by Arnórr Þórðarson as related in Morkinskinna, when in reciting his praise poem to King Harald Harðraða and his nephew and co-regent King Magnus, he spoke in his introduction about his travels in the Orkneys. Harald, well-versed in the skáldic arts, did not miss the slip.

The stefjabálkr contains a number of stefjamel, or sections, united by refrains. There can be as many as six different stef and therefore stefjamel. A stef is 2-4 lines long and can be split across stanzas. The content of a stef is often present tense praise and often vague.

flokkr – This is a short poem, a simple sequence of 5-13 stanzas without a refrain. An example of this type of poem would be the anonymous Liðsmannaflokkr, composed in either late 1016 or in 1017 in honor of Knut the Great.

lausavísur – Literally “loose verses.”This was an improvised stanza, not really a poem itself. The ability to improvise a stanza on the spot was a skill greatly feared and admired. An example of such a skáld would be Egil Skallagrímsson.

There were also different meters:

dróttkvætt - “Court Measure”, or “for recitation at court.” This is the heroic meter used in drápas (praise poems) or poems recited before the king or king’s men (drótt), hence the name. Gade calls dróttkvætt “the most stylized and prestigious meter of skaldic poetry.” In dróttkvætt, each stanza consists of two half-stanzas (helmingar) of four lines (vísuorð). A helmingr can consist of more than one sentence but as Gade relates, “the syntactic break between the two half-stanzas must be stronger than any break contained within the helmingr; that is, if the second helmingr begins with an introductory element and is subordinate to the main clause in the first, none of the half-stanzas can contain the direct connection between two main clauses.” (p. 3)

Turville-Petre describes Court Measure:

The lines consisted of six syllables, of which three were stressed. Each line ended in a trochee, and the lines were bound by alliteration in pairs. The measure was strophic, and the strophe consisted of eight lines, divided by a deep cæsura into half-strophes of four lines. The scaldic verses are often transmitted in half-strophes, and it is likely that the half-strophe of four lines was the original unit. Internal rime and consonance are employed, generally according to strict rules. (Turville-Petre, 13-14)

Hrynhenda – “Tumbling or falling meter.” This form developed out of dróttkvætt and had eight syllables per line instead of six, four of which were stressed. This style of meter is trochaic, in that the syllables are arranged in trochees, which are pairs of syllables that consist of a long syllable followed by a short one. Hrynhenda dates from about 985 C.E. and became popular in courtly poetry. An example of it is found in the fragments of the Hafgerðingadrápa.

An example in English would be “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

fornyrðislag - roughly, “the old rules,” or “the manner of the old utterances.” This is obviously an ancient form, and it differed from dróttvætt in several ways: Instead of 3, it had only 2 stressed syllables per line, and the odd lines were not required to have double alliteration. The third difference was that the number of syllables per line was less rigid, in that while a line would usually have six, it might sometimes have 5, or even 7.

Fornyrðislag is similar in form to the meter used in Beowulf, and also the Völuspá. In fornyrðislag each line has four syllables. A variant form of fornyrðislag is málaháttr, or “speech meter”. The first stanza of the Völuspá will serve as an example:

kviðuháttr – This was epic, narrative meter, similar to fornyrðislag but utilizing alternating lines of 3 and 4 syllables. In other words, out of 8 lines, 1, 3, 5 and 7 would have only three syllables, the even numbered lines having four.

galdralag – This is “magic spell meter,” set apart from the other meters by the fact that it has a fourth line that both echoes and varies the third line.

Ljóðaháttr – “Song (or Ballad) Meter”. This was a meter in the form of dialogues, such as those found in the Poetic Edda. An excellent example of this meter is in the Hávamál, or Words of the High One, particularly stanzas 1-79, 91-110 and 147-165.

Hollander calls 111-137 “irregular” ljóðaháttr and judges 138-146 to be “composed in a somewhat incoherent stanzaic form.” (Hollander, 14) One of the variants found in ljóðaháttr was galdraháttr or kviðuháttr, or “incantation meter.

Note stanza 1 below, using Hollander because his translation best captures the poetry of the Eddas (and keep in mind that Hollander is more interested in capturing the meter and less in accurately translating the stanza – let alone rendering it in comprehensible English):

Here me, all ye | hallowed beings

both high and low | of Heimdall’s children

thou wilt, Valfather | that I well set forth

the fates of the world | which as first I recall

And compare this to stanza 112 (irregular). Notice the variation in lines from the eight half lines in stanza 1:

Hear thou, Loddfáfnir, | and heed it well

learn it, ’twill lend thee strength,

follow it, ’twill further thee

at night rise not | but to be ready for foe,

or to look for a spot to relieve thee.

And lastly, to stanza 138 (incoherent). If you read through 138-146 you will readily note that they are not all of like structure, but vary from stanza to stanza:

I wot that I hung | on the wind-tossed tree

all of nights nine,

wounded by spear | bespoken by Óthin,

bespoken myself to myself,

upon that tree | of which none telleth,

from what roots it does rise.

málaháttr – “Speech meter” or literally “in the manner of conversation.” A variant form of fornyrðislag, but with a requirement of five syllables per line, though this can vary. Examples of this style if found in the Poetic Edda in the Atli poems, but also in the Harbarthsljoth, albeit in a somewhat freer style which also incorporates other meters. It is possible that later interpolations or faulty transmission of the poem are responsible for the form in which the Harbarthsljoth has come down to us.

runhenda – This ancient meter is usually employed within other meters, most commonly with fornyrðislag. An example of runhenda is found in Egil Skallagrimson’s Head Ransom (Höfuðlausn), the poem he recited to Eirkr Bloodaxe to save his head:

tøglag – Also called tøgdrápulag. A type of meter sometimes used in drápur, which requires four syllables per line. This type of drápa is called a tog-drápa. It has been suggested that this meter comes originally from King Knut’s court, from the mouth of the skáld Sigvatr Þórðarson, who wrote a tog-drápa in praise of Knut c. 1027. Another tog-drápa to Knut is credited to Þórarinn loftunga in either 1029 or 1030, in celebration of Knut’s campaign against Ólafr Tryggvason.

mannsöngskvædi/mannsöngvísur – This was a type of love song, in which a man and a woman would exchange improvised verses. It was forbidden, unsurprisingly, by Bishop Jón Ogmundarsson (d. 1121).

Alliterative verse is complex in form, and it is easy to see why it is not something easily translated into English. Two half lines form a line, and depending upon the type of meter, the two together must equal a certain number of syllables. Alliteration is achieved by having an initial consonant alliterate or rime with the same consonant. However, certain sounds, sk, sp and st alliterate only with themselves, while vowels can alliterate with any other vowel. Furthermore, alliteration can only occur at the beginning of stressed syllables. (It can be noted here that since alliteration is more a matter of sounds than strictly of letters, that in English, for example, alliteration could be achieved using “s”, “c”, and “ps” in a line.)

Alliterating initial sounds are called “staves” (stafr) while those in the second half-line are called “main stave” (hafuðstafr). Stresses are called “props” (stuðlar) and either stress in the first half line may be alliterated.

An example of alliterative verse is as follows: Note the use of two words beginning with “s” in the first verse, one in the second, then two beginning with “b” in the third verse, and one in the forth, and so on:

út heyri ek svan sveita
sara þorns er mornar,
brað vekr broginmóða,
bláfjallaðan gjalla;
svâ gól fyrr, þa er feigir
fólknárúngar váru
gunnar haukr, er gáukar
Gauts bragdá spá sagdu.

Landnámabók, 2:33

Conclusion

Old Norse poetry was born in a Pagan world – a world filled with the divine. It came down to us through a Christian world, written down by at least nominally Christian hands. But it is firmly rooted in the world of gods and these Pagan themes are quite visible in what has come down to us. “These are myths,” we are told by John Hines, “whose roots must lie in prehistoric Scandinavia, and which will have been transmitted — undergoing substantial changes, one must assume — through the threshold phase called ‘proto-history’ into the historical Middle Ages” (“Myth and Reality: the Contribution of Archaeology” Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference, 166). Finlay says, “Skalds both pagan and Christian repeatedly invoke the myth of Óðinn’s mediation of poetry from the supernatural to the human world” and we see “in Hallfreðar saga, the traditional relationship of poetic skill with pagan values” (Finlay, 85, 98).

As such, Old Norse poetry should be of interest to every modern Heathen, whether we can fashion or own or not.  Language, culture and religion are closely intertwined. By understanding one, we increase our understanding of the others.

______________________

Sources:

Berg, Mai Elisabeth. “Myth or Poetry, a Brief Discussion of Some Motives in the Elder Edda”  Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference.

Finlay, Alisan.  “Pouring Óðinn’s Mead: An Antiquarian Theme?” Proceedings of the 11th International  Saga Conference.

Gade, Kari.  The Structure of Old Norse Drottkvaett Poetry (Islandica). Cornell University Press 1995.

Hines, John. “Myth and Reality: the Contribution of Archaeology” Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference.

Hollander, Lee trans. M. The Poetic Eddas,  Austin, 1962.

Olrik, Axel. Viking Civilization. New York 1930.

Townend,  Matthew. “Contextualizing the Knútsdrápur : skaldic praise-poetry at the court of Cnut” Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference.

Turville-Petre,  E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North. New York, 1964.