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POETICAL INSPIRATIONIN OLD NORSE AND
OLD ENGLISH POETRY
By
ANTHONY FAULKES
PROFESSOR OF OLD ICELANDIC
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
The Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecturein Northern Studies
delivered at University College London28 November 1997
PUBLISHED FOR THE COLLEGE BY THEVIKING SOCIETY FOR NORTHERN
RESEARCH
LONDON
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UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON 1997
PRINTED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
ISBN: 0 903521 32 6
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POETICAL INSPIRATION IN OLD NORSEAND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
IN THE VENERABLE BEDES ACCOUNT of the earliest known Anglo-Saxon
poet Caedmon, we are told that Caedmon was an un-lettered herdsman
who was unable to take part in the eveningentertainment of his
fellows because he could not sing. One nightafter he had left a
party early because of his embarrassment anangel came to him in a
dream and told him to sing of creation,and the result is Caedmons
hymn, a short poem about Godscreation of the world for men, the
most remarkable thing aboutwhich is its complicated verbal and
metrical structure. There-after Caedmon was found to have a gift
for poetry; and it isinteresting to note that his later poems were
evidently producedby the learned monks of the monastery retelling
to him storiesfrom the Bible which he is said to have chewed over
like a cowchewing the cud and to have reproduced in poetical
languagewith great sweetness (Hist. eccl. IV 24).
From Bedes account it is clear that the divine gift
Caedmonreceived was one of expression, the ability to tell existing
storiesin verse form, what oft was thought but neer so well
expressd.If he was inspired, it was not the content, but the
language thathe was inspired with, as is argued by C. L. Wrenn in
The Poetryof Caedmon (1946, 286), who suggests that the real
miracle ofCaedmon was that an unlettered peasant should become able
touse the style and manner of learned court poetry. There is a
closeanalogue to the story of Caedmon in the Old Icelandic story
ofHallbjo rn hali in Flateyjarbk (F IX 2279). His problem wasthat
he wanted to compose an elegy for an earlier poet but couldnot find
the words. He fell asleep on the poets grave mound andthe dead man
came out to him in his dream and gave him theability to compose
poetry, instructing him to compose in ascomplex a metrical and
verbal style as possible. One interesting
3
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
4
similarity between the stories of Caedmon and Hallbjo rn is
thatwhile both are said to have gone on to compose much other
poetry,no further verse by either of them has been recorded.
Stories about individuals receiving inspiration in
composingpoetry from supernatural sources are widespread, but what
I wantto compare with Bedes account of Caedmons inspiration is
whatSnorri Sturluson wrote about poetry in Iceland in the
thirteenthcentury. Snorri is one of the few writers of medieval
Scandinaviawho express clear critical attitudes about the nature of
vernacularpoetry, and although he was writing towards the end of
the periodwhen oral skaldic poetry was cultivated in the North, it
is likelythat his views about poetry would have been shared by
manypoets and their audiences in his time and earlier. He has a
mythabout the origin of poetry in his Edda, according to which
poeticalinspiration is given to gods and men by inn in the form of
analcoholic drink brewed from the blood of a person of
immensewisdom created from the spittle produced by two races of
godsto seal their truce after their war together. This drink had to
berecovered by inn after it had been in the possession first
ofdwarfs and then of giants, and when he escaped with it back tothe
other gods he carried it in his stomach while flying in theform of
an eagle; he was chased by another eagle and could notprevent some
of the liquid from being expelled backwards; thatpart of it was
left for rhymesters or poetasters. The rest which hewas able to
bring up into containers in sgarr was for the gods,and for human
poets and scholars.
There are many analogues to this story too in the mythologyof
various countries, some of them well outside the area ofGermanic
culture. Skaldic poets frequently alluded to the storyin their
poetry. It seems at first sight that this would support theidea of
poetry having being seen in medieval Scandinavia as aninspirational
activity of which the symptoms were similar todrunkenness. Thus the
seventeenth-century Icelandic poet Magnslafsson in his essay on
Norse poetry published in 1636 speaksof a poet reciting appearing
to be vino madens and uses the termskldvingl or poetica
vertigo:
Further, our poetry also has this peculiarity: whereas in
ordinarylanguages anyone can put together poems in accordance with
the
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
5
fashion of his country, force the words into some sort of
rhythmicalpattern, and by practice achieve some fluency; in ours no
one becomesa poet, or can put together even the simplest kind of
poem withoutgreat labour, however much he wants to, unless he is
especiallygifted with poetic inspiration. And this inspiration,
like other naturalpassions, affects some more violently and others
more gently. Someproduce good poetry after long working out, others
pour out allkinds of poems extempore with a more violent kind of
impulse, sothat whatever they try to express turns out to be
poetry, as thatmost ingenious Roman poet once claimed of his own
poetic fluency,and they find verse just as easy as prose. Further,
this sort of qualityreveals itself by clear signs straightway at a
very early age. Normust it be forgotten that this activity of the
spirit is hottest at thetime of the new moon, and you would say
that an outstanding poetexplaining poetical matters to others, or
occupied in delivering poetry,was under the influence of drink, was
afflicted with a rather severeattack of melancholy, or was seized
by some madness; and oftenthis quality can be detected even in
strangers from a certain particularmannerism which we call
skldvingl or poetical delirium.
Magns lafsson, however, was influenced by Renaissanceattitudes
to poetry (and the Roman poet he refers to is Ovid,Tristia IV x
25), though he may not actually have readShakespeares words about
the poets eye in a fine frenzy rollingor the lunatic, the lover and
the poet, and I know of no medievalIcelandic stories of individual
poets being inspired either literallyor metaphorically to compose
particular poems by draughts ofthe mead of poetry, and although inn
is sometimes referredto by poets (most notably by Egill
Skalla-Grmsson) as the giverof the gift of poetic expression, he is
never invoked by poets inScandinavia in the way that the Muses were
invoked by classicalpoets. What inns mead gives is not the
inspiration to composea poem, but the ability and skill to express
oneself in verse (andthe ability to be a scholar). Poets speak of
composition andperformance as pouring out inns mead, not as
drinking it;Skldskaparml verses 4 and 17 by Skld-Refr are
ambiguous,but verse 18 by Einarr sklaglamm is clear. Refr said
this:
(4) Often the kind man brought me to the raven-gods [inns]holy
drink [instructed me in poetry].(17) To you we owe Falrs cups [the
mead of poetry], nobleSlaughter-Gautr [inn].
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
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Einarr sklaglamm said this:(18) I shall succeed in bailing the
draught of Host-Tyrs [inns]wine-vessel [the mead of poetry] before
the ship-impeller [seaman,i. e. Earl Hkon]I need no urging to
that.
When skaldic poets refer to the receiving of inns mead, it
isgenerally their hearers who do this, not the poets
(Skldskaparmlverses 27, 28, 29). The role of inn is made more
complex byreferences to the god Bragi as also being a patron of
poetry, thoughthere are no stories to illustrate in what way he
relates to humanpoets. It may be added that there is not a close
connection betweenpoetry and religious ritual expressed in Old
Norse poetry, exceptperhaps in some eddic verse.
Muchthough not allskaldic poetry is characterised bycomplexity
of diction and metre. There are several anecdotesillustrating the
difficulties of understanding it (as well as someindicating the
difficulty of composing it; Snorri refers to this inHttatal in the
introduction to stanza 17), and some that indicateattitudes to its
complexity. These anecdotes are mostly from thethirteenth century,
and so do not necessarily tell us about attitudesto poetry in the
Viking Age, but they are probably contemporarywith Snorri and
reinforce the impression gained from his writings.The puzzle
element in Icelandic poetry is dominant; the sameword, ra, is used
of interpreting poetry as of interpreting runes,riddles and dreams.
Snorri in several places in Skldskaparmlrefers to poetry in terms
of concealment. He makes gir describea kenning for poetry as vel
flgit rnum, concealed well inrunes; Bragi had just referred to the
use of this kenning as vrfelum rnum ea skldskap sv, we conceal [it]
in runes orin poetry thus (the basic meaning of the word rn is
secret).gir refers to other kennings as myrkt, obscure (Edda
SnorraSturlusonar 1931, 813). Snorri refers to the purpose
ofSkldskaparml as to help young poets at kunna skilja at erhulit er
kveit, to be able to understand what is composed so asto be
concealed (Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, 86). He alsospeaks
ironically of the use in poetry of gera ofljst at vant er atskilja,
making too clear so that it is difficult to understand. Hisaccount
of ofljst gives a good idea of how important he thoughtthe puzzle
element in poetry (Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, 193):
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
7
Lti means two things. Noise is called lti, disposition (i)
iscalled lti, and i also means fury. Reii also has two meanings.It
is called reii [wrath] when a man is in a bad temper, the
gear(fargervi) of a ship or horse is called reii. Far also has two
meanings.Fr is anger, far is a ship. People frequently use such
vocabularyso as to compose with concealed meaning, and this is
usually calledword-play (ofljst [obvious]). People call it li
[joint] on a personwhere the bones meet, li is a word for ship, li
[troop] is a wordfor people. It is also called li [help] when
someone gives anotherassistance (lisinni). L is a word for ale.
There is what is calleda hli [gateway] in an enclosure, and hli is
what people call anox, and hl is a slope. These distinctions can be
made use of inpoetry so as to create word-play which is difficult
to understand,if it is a different distinction of meaning that has
to be taken thanthe previous lines seemed before to indicate.
Similarly there arealso many other such words where the same term
applies to severalthings.
Middle English poetry is claimed to have a large element of
thedesire for concealment in its purpose and style by A. C.
Spearing(Readings in Medieval Poetry 1989, 97). In Gsla saga (ch.
18),the hero (who is a poet) is depicted as reciting a poem which
heshould have kept to himself. It is overheard by his sister,
whogot the verse by heart from the one hearing, and goes home,and
by then she has worked out its meaning. In the verse Gslihas
revealed his guilt for the secret killing of her husband (F VI589).
There is a comparable riddling confession of guilt in Grettissaga
verse 11 (ch. 16; F VII 47). In Sneglu-Halla ttr (F IX26395), which
is even more obviously fictional than Gsla saga,but which
nevertheless must express attitudes and values of thethirteenth
century, the hero is depicted as not only a poet but ajoker; he
comes to the court of Harold Godwineson and recitesa poem
supposedly in his honour. The king and his court areunable to
understand the poem immediately, and when the poetasks for his
reward the king orders silver to be poured over hishead so that he
can keep as a reward an amount comparable towhat the audience
retained of his poem. Halli smears tar overhis hair so that a lot
of the silver sticks, and then makes good hisescape, because he
knows that eventually the king will realisethat the poem was
nonsense. This is clearly a satire on the
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
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incomprehensibility of Viking poetry; the point does not seemto
be the linguistic barrier between Icelanders and Englishmenin the
eleventh century, since saga-writers do not seem toacknowledge that
there was one. In Gunnlaugs saga it is claimedthat then the same
language was spoken in England as in Norwayand Denmark (F III
70).
Two verses supposed to have been spoken by Haraldr harribefore
the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 have been taken todemonstrate
that kings preference for elaborate and obscure verse.The story is
told in Snorri Sturlusons Heimskringla (F XXVIII,1878). He is said
to have left his armour in his ship and is goingto have to fight
without it. He states this in a simple, straightforwardand quite
expressive verse in the simple metre of eddic poetry.Then he says,
etta er illa kveit ok mun vera at gera ara vsubetri, that is badly
composed and I shall now make another betterverse, and utters a
rather complex verse in very involved skaldicstyle which is really
rather difficult to interpret, though there areplenty that are
worse.
I now want to look at some examples of skaldic verse and
thetechniques used in them, and what Snorri says about them, tosee
what impression we can get about what was actually valuedin this
poetry when it was composed. Snorri discusses two aspectsof poetry
at length in his Edda, vocabulary and metre; he hasvery little to
say about other aspects of it such as content. In hisdiscussion of
vocabulary he spends most time on nominal groupswhere instead of
referring to a person or thing by its normalname, a poet replaces
(or conceals) that name with another, whichmay be a poetical term
like steed for horse, or a kenning,which has at least two elements,
such as when gold is calledfire of the sea or a king distributor of
gold. Many of theseterms are not metaphorical and few can be
described as images;generally they do not focus on the
characteristics of individualpersons or things, but convey the
general concept of gold objector ruler and so on without expressing
any feature of them eitheras individuals or as being in a
particular situation. That is, a rulerwill be a distributor of gold
even when he is fighting a battleand gold will be called the fire
of the sea even when it is in theform of a mans arm-ring on his
arm. If the man wearing the
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
9
gold ring is fighting a battle on land the mention of the sea
willhave no relevance to his situation at all and does not
contributeto the picture of the action being described.
Among the practical difficulties of understanding and
translatingsuch verse is the problem of working out the syntactical
relationsof words and phrases and knowing how involved and
complexthey are supposed to be. In an inflected language like
Icelandic,understanding the functions of words depends less on
their positionin the sentence than on their grammatical form, so
that it is oftenpossible in verse to depart from the normal
word-order withoutmaking the functions of words ambiguous, and
skaldic poets usethis facility extensively, so that not only the
order of elements inthe sentence is varied, but words belonging
together as parts ofa single phrase are often separated or
interwoven with parts ofother phrases. In kennings, one element is
generally in the genitivecase, and in most words, though indeed not
in all, the genitiveis easily recognised and distinct from other
forms of the word.But when there are two kennings juxtaposed, each
of whichcontains a genitive, it can sometimes be difficult to see
whichgenitive belongs with which base-word.
I am afraid I am now going to get rather technical, and I
amsorry if this induces any feeling of poetical vertigo in you,
butit is necessary to go into technicalities to understand the
poetry,and this is believed to be oral poetry which was understood
orallyby its original audience. There is a difficulty in knowing
how topresent skaldic verse for a modern audience, though I am
con-vinced that it is possible to make it meaningful even to
thosewith little knowledge of Old Norse. It is common in
moderneditions of skaldic verses to present the text in prose
word-order,i. e. to print the verse first in its manuscript form
and then to re-arrange the words so that those that belong to the
same phrasecome together. Snorri himself uses this method of
explication(i. e. re-ordering the words as prose) with two verses
in Httatal(which is a poem he himself composed), verses 1718. This
ismainly because in these verses he is illustrating refhvo rf,
wherewords of opposite meanings are juxtaposed though they do
notalways have those opposite meanings in the verse as a whole.His
verse 17 and explanation (which is not entirely a re-ordering
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
10
of the words, but also in part a prose paraphrase) are as
follows.The prose word-ordering is printed in bold type.
Sks glar verr skirsltt skar hafi jarar;hlfgranda rekr hendirheit
ko ld loga o ldu;fljtt vlkat skilr fylkirfrilro uls svarrnsi rsir
sto varreirglar fro mum meium.
. . . Hr eru snd essi vsu sextn orto k sundrgreinilig, ok
eruflest ofljs til rtts mals at fra, ok skal sv upp taka: sks gl,at
er gull; skir gulls, at er mar; hann verr skar jarar hafisltt, at
eru Firir, sv heitir fylki i Nregi; hlfgrandi, at ervpn; hendir
loga o ldu er mar, er rekr ko ld heit sverinu, at erat hegna siu;
fljtt vlkat m at kalla er skjtt rit er, at skilrhann af friinum;
konungr heitir fylkir, rnsi rsir stovar svarro uls fro mum meium..
. . Here are demonstrated in this stanza sixteen phrases of
contrarymeanings, and most of them have to be turned to their
proper meaningby means of word-play, and this is how it is to be
understood: ditch-glede, i. e. gold; attacker of gold, that is a
man; he defends thecleft of land smoothed by the sea, i. e. Firir,
this is the name ofa district in Norway; with shield-harmer, i. e.
a weapon; throwerof wave-flame is a man, who drives away cold
threats with thesword, that is to punish wickedness;
hastily-weighed may be saidof what is unpremeditated, he perceives
this from the hostility; aking is called fylkir [leader]; the ruler
puts a stop to the plunderinghabits of bold sea-sun-trees.
Verse 18 is similar. This sort of effect, where words have to
beunderstood in two meanings at once, must have been very
difficultto convey in the pre-literary period. It is doubtful,
however, whetherthis method of re-ordering the words of a verse
into prose word-order could have been used in the pre-literary
period (it is onlywith these two verses of Httatal, and in a less
exhaustive way,verses 46 of the same poem, that Snorri himself uses
it), thougha somewhat similar second explanatory text was
apparentlypreserved orally alongside the real text in the case of
Vedicpoems, which are probably much deeper in the oral period
of
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
11
their culture than any Scandinavian verse is in its
(Macdonell1917, xiixiii). But it is difficult to see how people
could haveunderstood complex skaldic verse without some such
assistance,and in particular how the audience could have been made
to realisewhich words belonged together in a verse when there is a
genuinepossibility of taking them in two ways.
In my explanations I prefer not to re-order the words, since
Ithink that the word-order not only embodies the structure of
theverse, but also to a large extent the meaning, and I think it
unlikelythat this procedure would have been used in pre-literary
times inScandinavia. So I use the resources of the computer to
identifywhich words belong together and how they can be
representedin English; this method is in fact rather like that of
E. A. Kockin his edition in Den Norsk-Islndska Skaldediktningen
(19469).The asterisks mark words that have been unavoidably
emended.Translation on its own cannot hope to reproduce much of
themeaning or effect of the original. The numbers are the numbersof
the verses in Finnur Jnssons edition of Edda SnorraSturlusonar of
1931.
An example of how words can be taken to belong to
differentphrases is found in this verse of Einarr Sklason
describing anornamented axe:
(193) Bleisu liggr bibjargs tveim megin geimasjs ek skkva
strisnr ok eldrat mra.
There lies on each side of the blood-embers head (the head of
thegold-adorned axe) both the purses snow and oceans fire; I
mustpraise the punisher of Vikings.
There are two kennings for the decoration on the axe: sjs snrand
geima eldror it might be sjs eldr and geima snr. Arethey
differentiated as gold and silver, or are they, contrary to
ourintuition, just general kennings for precious metal, as is
impliedby Snorris commentary to verse 194 and the short
anonymoustreatise on kennings that Finnur Jnsson called Den lille
Sklda(Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, 256/22: gull m kenna til snsok
ss, gold can be referred to as snow and ice)? The kenning
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
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skkva stri is also ambiguous: skk can mean gold, and skkvastri
could mean destroyer, i. e. dispenser of gold, generous prince.
My next example is anonymous:
(317) *Orgildi var ek (Eldis) [MS O rgildis]ls Fjo rgynjar
(mla)dyggr; s heir ok hreggi(hrynbes) r steja.
I was loyal to the liberal payer of Fjo rgyns eels [serpents]
tinklingbed, and honour be to the storm of the
river-anvil-[rock-]Eldirs[giants] speech.
The two complicated kennings in this verse (referring to the
samegenerous man) can be analysed in two quite different ways
withoutthe meaning being much affected, since the basewords (o
rgildi,hreggi; both dative, with ek var dyggr and s ok heir) are in
thecontext synonymous (liberal payer; storm, destroyer) and boththe
strings of determinants mean gold: o rgildi hrynbesFjo rgynjar ls
and hreggi r steja Eldis mla, or o rgildi rsteja Eldis mla and
hreggi hrynbes Fjo rgynjar ls.
The next example is from Einarr sklaglamms Vellekla:
(223) Ne sigbjarka serkirsmmijungum rmuHrs vi Ho gna skrirhlut
fast of sir.
The three nouns serkir, (sm)mijungum, skrir are base-wordsin
kennings for, respectively, mail-coats, warriors, missiles: Nehlut
fast of sir serkir mijungum vi skrir, the firmly-sewnmail-coats did
not defend warriors from missiles. The wordswhich may be
determinants in these kennings are sigbjarka, sm-,rmu, Hrs, Ho gna.
There seem to be too many of them, and itis difficult to see which
base-word each belongs with. PresumablyHogna goes with skrir,
sigbjarka (battle birches, i. e. warriors:it is unusual to refer to
men by feminine tree-names) with serkir,and smmijungum, bow-giants
is another kenning for warriors.What do we do with rmu Hrs? Take it
as a dative phrase, ininns tumult, i. e. in battle? But rma means
battle on itsown. Attaching Hrs or rmu to any of the other kennings
resultsin redundant elements to the kennings, though it is not
certain
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13
that such redundancy was avoided by skaldic poets; there is
quitea lot of it in their work.
In many verses, two parallel statements are juxtaposed
orinterwoven; obviously if each has a nominative subject
and/oraccusative object, only the meaning of the verb can
determinewhich subject and object go with which verb, as in this
verse inan account of a battle by ttarr svarti:
(340) O rn drekkr undarn, Eagle drinks breakfastylgr fr at hrm
sylg, she-wolf gets from corpses drinkopt rr lfr kpt, often reddens
wolf its jawsari getr ver ar. eagle gets food there.
The question is, which of the two possible interpretations
shouldwe accept and prefer, and why, taking undarn as object of
drekkr(drinks breakfast) and sylg as object of fr (gets drink)
orvice versa (drinks liquid, gets breakfast)? (There are not
thesame possibilities in lines 3 and 4.) The first, which is
syntacticallysimpler, is preferred by E. A. Kock, the second, which
issemantically more logical, by Finnur Jnsson. However they
aretaken, both phrases refer to the devouring of dead warriors
bybirds of prey, but sylg would fit better than undarn as the
objectof drekkr, giving interchange of the elements of the two
clauses.Kocks interpretation makes the quatrain an example of
Snorristtmlt, where each line is a separate integral statement.
Tryingto understand which interpretation the poet meant raises
basicquestions of the meaning of utterances of the kinds that
thephilosopher Wittgenstein puzzled over. What does it mean tosay
that when I say something I mean this rather than that whenwhat I
have said could mean either? His arguments would supportthe idea
that skaldic verse too was a game, a social ritual, wherethe
function of the activity was more important than the meaningor
content of the utterances.
There is a similar kind of syntactical ambiguity in this
verseabout rr fighting a giant from jlfr of Hvinirs Haustlo ng
:
(67) yrmit Baldrs of barmi Baldrs brother spared notbergslgnum
ar dlgi (rocks) the greedy enemy therehristusk, bjo rg ok brustu,
(shook, crags also shattered;brann upphiminnmanna. the sky above
burned) of men.
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
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The interwoven statement here can be taken as berg hristusk,bjo
rg ok brustu, or hristusk bjo rg ok berg brustu. Both the verbsand
both the nouns are near synonyms, and various orders arepossible,
though Kock prefers to take berg with slgnum so thatthe parenthesis
has only one subject. Manna could conceivablygo with upphiminn
rather than with dlgi. With these twosuggestions adopted, lines 3
and 4 become integral statementsand there is no parenthesis at all.
It is doubtful whether that iswhat a medieval audience would have
preferred, and sky of menis a less normal expression than enemy of
men (= giant). Arenormal expressions what we should expect in
skaldic verse? Islogic a valid criterion of meaning and authorial
intention? Whatare the underlying aesthetic preferences, for
naturalness and simp-licity or for complexity and puzzlement? There
are also multiplepossibilities of arranging the kennings in lines
58 of this stanza.
There is another example in the description of the death of
thegiant jazi in Haustlo ng:
(104) Hfu skjtt en skfu Began quickly and shavedsko pt ginnregin
brinna shafts mighty powers to burn
Here there are two plural verbs, skfu and hfu brinna, and
twoplural nouns, sko pt and ginnregin, which could each be
eithernominative or accusative. The two statements can be read
shaftsquickly began to burn, and the mighty powers shaved them,
orthey quickly began to burn and the mighty powers shaved shafts,or
sko pt could be read both as the subject of the one verb and asthe
object of the other, shafts quickly began to burn, and themighty
powers shaved shafts. Skjtt could also, of course betaken with
either clause or with both (the phenomenon of oneword belonging to
two separate clauses is discussed below, p. 18).
If there is more than one adverbial phrase in a verse
containingmore than one clause, it can be difficult to see which
phrase goesin which clause. For instance, Bragi the Old describes
rrsfishing for the Midgard serpent like this:
(42) Var l Viris arfavilgi slakr er rakisk, Eynfis o ndri,Jo
rmungandr at sandi.
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
15
In this verse there are two clauses, the main clause Var
Virisarfa l vilgi slakr, Virirs sons (i. e. rrs) fishing-line layby
no means slack and the subordinate clause er rakisk Jo rmun-gandr,
when Jo rmungandr (the Midgard serpent) uncoiled. Thetwo adverbial
phrases Eynfis o ndri, in Eynfirs ski (on theboat) and at sandi, on
the sand can each be taken with eitherverb, though as we picture
the scene of rrs fishing for theMidgard serpent the first seems to
go better with l and the secondwith rakisk.
(2) Now [there] is for steed-logs of the sea [i. e. for
sea-warriors]N er jdraugum gis
eagles flightand rings, [i. e. birds of prey are gathering,arnar
flaugok bauga, a battle is taking place]
I think that invitation they will receivehygg ek at heimbo
iggi
of god of the hangedover the field. [i. e. of inn inHangagosof
vangi. Valhalla]
In this verse attributed to Hvarr halti the prose word-orderis
obtained by exchanging the last two words in the first coupletwith
the last two in the second. This is required not by the syntax,for
it is grammatically possible to read the words in the
originalorder, but by the sense, for bauga will not do as a
parallel toeither arnar or flaug, and the adverbial phrase of vangi
will notdo with iggi heimbo Hangagos. The battle is taking place
onthe field, and the warriors will receive inns hospitality
andplunder. And although the order is required by the verse-form(to
provide the hendings), it is difficult to believe that it is
thatthat has determined the order, for there are plenty of
alternativewords that could have been used to express the meaning.
Thepoet must have wanted the unnatural word-order.
Eysteinn Valdason describes rrs fight with the Midgard sepentas
follows:
(47) So it happened/reacted planksSv br vir at sjurCOALFISH made
run forward broadSEIR rendi fram breiar
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
16
EARTHS; out on the gunwaleJARAR; t at bori
Ullrs stepfathers (rrs) fists bangedUlls mg[s] hnefar
skullu.
It is the syntax rather than the kenning that is obscure in
thisverse. Br vi could be impersonal, it happened, or seir
jarar(earths coalfish, i. e. the Midgard serpent) could be the
subject,the serpent reacted; rendi is causative to make run and
usuallytakes a dative object, but can also take an accusative
object (thengenerally with the object being a liquid, to pour), or
be intransitive.So it happened that the earths coalfish made the
broad planksrun forward or so the earths coalfish reacted that the
broadplanks ran forward. The meaning of the two interpretations
isnot very different, and there seems no way to decide betweenthem.
While there is little support for the use of rendi with
anaccusative object, if sjur is the subject the verb needs to
beemended to rendu. Finnur Jnsson achieves further complexityby
taking the last line and a half as the at-clause, and breiarsjur
rendu fram as the second main clause: the earths coalfishreacted so
that out on the gunwale Ullrs stepfathers (rrs)fists banged; the
broad planks ran forward. This is the sort ofinterweaving of
clauses that Kock condemns as an unnatural andover-academic
interpretation, though it certainly can be arguedthat the natural
meaning of the verse is that the serpents reactioncaused rrs fists
to bang on the gunwale, rather than that itwas the cause of the
boat moving forward; but Finnurs versiondoes involve assuming a
most unnatural word-order.
Arnrr jarlaskld in orfinnsdrpa says:
(297) Bitu sveren ar *uru [MS urir]unngjo r fyrir Mo n sunnanRo
gnvalds kindund randirramlig flkins gamla.
The most obvious interpretation of this would be to take
Rognvaldsins gamla kind, Ro gnvaldr the Olds descendant = Earl
orfinnras the object of unngjor sver bitu, thinly made swords
pierced,but from the context of the verse we know that it is not
aboutEarl orfinnr being wounded, but about his victory. Bitu
must
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
17
therefore be without an object and kind must be dative of
advantage.Thinly made swords pierced for Rognvaldr the Olds
descendant;and mighty armies pressed forward under their shields
there.Would the possibility of a misunderstanding have been
understoodas a joke? Fyrir Mo n sunnan, to the south of the Isle of
Mancould go with either clause or both, and should perhaps
beunderstood with ar.
As well as the separation of words belonging to the same
phrase,there are clear examples of the parts of a compound word
beingseparated from each other (the classical term for this is
tmesis),and even of the separation of the parts of two compound
wordswithin the same half-verse. If the separated first elements
areplaced before other words than those they belong with, it can
bedifficult to be sure which words they are part of, and there
areexamples of elements of a pair of compound words
beinginterchanged.
One of the clearest and most undeniable examples of tmesis
is:
(101/34) var I- me jo tnum Then was I- among the giants-ur
nkomin sunnan. -ur newly come from the south.
Iur is a form of the name of Iunn, the keeper of the godsapples
of eternal youth, who was abducted by the giant jazi.The two parts
of her name, although they exist as separate words,make no sense
separately in this sentence.
Another is:
(93/4) - fyr -sko mmu not ago a short [time], i. e. long
ago.
- corresponds to the English prefix un- , and like it is not
normallyseparated from the word it negates. Both these examples are
fromHaustlo ng, and it is interesting that some of the most
confusingof these syntactical complexities are found in poetry on
mytho-logical topics, though I cannot see that there can be any
religiousreason for the poet to be obscure in these particular
verses. Ifthere is a connection the poet might be considered more
likelyto be parodying priestly language than just using it.
Not all kennings consist of base words with genitives;
someconsist of compound words where the first half of the
compoundreplaces a genitive. Tmesis dividing such compounds is
evenmore difficult to understand when the elements of a word
are
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
18
not only separated by more than a line, but are in reverse
order.This example is from Eilfr Gurnarsons rsdrpa:(78) There into
the forest against the forests
ar mo rk fyrir markarnoisily chattering wind [= current] they
setmlhvettan byr settu(the slippery wheel-knobs [stones] did
not)(ne hvlvo lur hlar)fishing-net shooting adders [spears]
(sleep)hf- skotnara (svfu).
There they pushed shooting-snakes [spears] in the
fishing-net-forest[river] against the talkative [noisy]
fishing-net-forest wind [current].The slippery wheel-knobs [stones]
did not lie asleep.
Here, hf- is taken as the first element in the compound hfmo
rkand at the same time as the first element in the compoundhfmarkar
(in both cases making a kenning for river, fishing-net-forest).
Words that are to be taken as part of two separatephrases or
clauses in Old English poetry are discussed by BruceMitchell in An
Invitation to Old English 1995, 70. Bruce Mitchellspoils his
argument for the existence of such constructions byaccusing those
who do not accept them of being insensitive, whichis like accusing
those who cannot see fairies of being blind; butaccording to
Roberta Frank in Old Norse Court Poetry 1978,112, a similar feature
occurs in Japanese poetry. There is a furtherpossible example in
Skldskaparml in verse 104, quoted above.
In this verse from lfr Uggasons Hsdrpa the parts of
thekenning-compound are again separated by two lines:(64) Helpful
in counsel acts gods
Rgegninn bregr ragnastrip of land at Singasteinnrein- at
Singasteinirenowned against mighty slyfrgr vi firna *slgjan [MS
slgjum]Frbautis son defenderFrbauta *mo g -vri. [MS mo gr]
Here rein goes with vri to make a compound: frgr rgegninn
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
19
ragna reinvri, the renowned helpful in counsel defender ofthe
gods strip of land, i. e. Heimdallr, defender of Bifrost. Tmesiscan
be avoided, as Kock points out, by replacing rein with thegenitive
reinar (Notationes norrn 1952), though this makesthe metre less
normal.(260) Fjarlinna fannir
fast vetrlii rastar;hljp of *hna -gnpurhvals *rann- ugtanni.
The winter-survivor [bear] of the current [i. e. the ship] waded
fastthe drifts of fjord-serpents [waves]; the greedy-tooth [bear]
of themast-head [i. e. the ship] ran over the whales
house-tops.
This is attributed to Marks Skeggjason and describes a
sea-voyage. The kennings in the second couplet are hna [MS
hvta]ugtanni and hvals ranngnpur. Emending rann [MS ann] toranns
would get rid of the tmesis, but the two kennings remainwith their
determinants effectively exchanged. Cf. Frank 1978,467. Another
striking example of double tmesis is found in anotherverse of
rsdrpa:(90) . . . salvani- -Synjar
sigr hlaut arin- *-bauti. [MS arinbrauti]The subject of sigr
hlaut, gained victory is a kenning for rr,arin-Synjar salvanibauti,
beater of the frequenter of hearth-stone-Syns dwelling, though Kock
(Notationes norrn 467)makes it into one for giantesses, acc. with
the preposition of.Here again the tmesis (but not the exchange of
determinants)could be avoided by making both salvani and arin
genitive.
There is an instructive example of how the possibility of
seeingmaximum complexity in a verse was dealt with in the
thirteenthcentury in Snorris commentary to the next verse, which
isattributed to Vga-Glmr; this commentary at the same
timedemonstrates Snorris acknowledgement that the elements
ofcompound kennings can be interchanged:(255) Rudda ek sem jarlar I
fought my way like earls
or *lk vforum I had a reputation for this formerlyme versto fum
Viris with weather-staves of Virirsvandar mr til *landa. wand to
win lands.
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
20
The MS has lr in line 2 and handa in line 4. It is difficult
toknow which clause forum, formerly goes with, but moresignificant
is that Snorris commentary analyses the kenning forwarriors as
stafir vandar Viris vers, staves of the wand ofVirirs weather
instead of the more obvious stafir vers Virisvandar, staves of the
weather of Virirs wand. Virir is a namefor inn, whose weather is
battle and whose wand is the sword.Snorris interpretation involves
exchanging ver and vandar. Suchinterchanging of the elements of a
complex kenning is certainlyfound, however, as in the next verse,
which is attributed to EgillSkalla-Grmsson, who seems not to have
been averse to word-play. This is one of the best-known examples of
tmesis:
(140) Upp skulum rum sverum, Aloft shall we make our swordslfs
tannlitur, glitra; O stainer of wolves teeth, shine;eigum d at
drgja we have daring deeds to do dalmiskunn fiska. in the
valley-mercy of fish.
The stainer of wolves teeth is the warrior addressed in the
verse,who gives wolves blood to drink from his dead enemies.
Thelast line has to be read miskunn dalfiska, in the mercy of
valley-fish; valley-fish are snakes, their mercy or grace is the
summerwhen they come out of hibernation, and this can either
beinterpreted as tmesis (dal- separated from -fiska) or as
transferenceof one of the elements of a kenning from a determinant
to thebase-word. This does give a more regular rhythm to the line,
butcan hardly be said to be determined by metrical
considerations.
An example of a particularly complex verse is this one, whichis
another quatrain from Einarr sklaglamms Vellekla:
(34) Rushes wave before princeEisar *vgr fyrir vsa, [MS
vargr]works of inn profit meverk Ro gnis mr *hagna, [MS ho
gna]pounds mead-containers swelltr reris aldaalways seas against
skerry of songs [i. e. teeth]aldr hafs vi fles galdra.
There seem to be three kennings for poetry here, each of
which
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
21
is the subject of a sentence. Vgr (wave), verk (works), alda
(wave)look like base-words, the first and last in reference to the
meadof poetry. Ro gnis (inns), reris (the mead-containers) andhafs
(the seas) look like determinants. Some commentators haveby
emendation produced alternatives to some of these, but theydo not
reduce the problems, which arise from the fact that thegenitives do
not seem to be closest to the nominatives they gowith. Verk Ro gnis
(inns work) would make a recognisablekenning for poetry, and so
would reris alda (wave of the mead-container), but that leaves vgr
hafs (or aldrhafs), wave of theancient (?) sea which would not.
Unless one is prepared to guessat some radical emendation, it is
difficult to avoid the conclusionthat fyrir governs not vsa but mr,
and the kennings are vgrRo gnis (inns wave), verk vsa (princes
work) and alda hafsreris (wave of the sea of the
mead-container).
It is interesting that such complexity so frequently occurs
inverses that are actually about poetry and composition, and
thatthe actual content of this ingenious verse amounts to little
morethan I am performing rewarding poetry before the prince. It isa
performative utterance rather than an informative one. It is
theritual that is important.
Word-play of various kinds is used by skaldic poets. There isan
example of word-play using redundancy or deliberate tautologyin a
kenning in a verse of Einarr Sklason:
(335) Hugins fermu bregr harmi The troubler of Huginns
foodharmr. ends his trouble.
The troubler of Huginns food (carrion) is the one who eats it,i.
e. Huginn himself, the raven; the trouble that he ends by eatingit
is his hunger.
One device that Snorri mentions several times is called
ofljst,literally (and ironically) too clear. Ofljst is a kind of
word-playparticularly used for personal names, where the name, or
an elementof it, is replaced by a synonym of the word as a common
noun,e. g. Foglhildr for Svanhildr. Eilfr Gurnarson uses this
device ina form reminiscent of crossword-puzzle clues for the name
Hkon:
(36) You will have to, since of words*Veri *r, alls ora [MS verr
ei]
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
22
for us grows about noble kinsman (Earl Hkon)oss grr of kon *mran
[MS mrar]on mind-land of mead-container [breast, heart, sefreinu
Snar where poetry is stored]seed, decide upon friendly giftss,
vingjo fum ra.
There are two kennings in this verse, ora s (seed of words
=poetry) and sefreinu Snar (the poets breast), though some
peopleprefer to take them as s Snar (seed of the mead-container)and
sefreinu ora (sedge-land of words = breast or tongue). Inaddition
kon mran seems to mean Hkon (h- = high, noble,mrr = famous,
glorious, noble; kon = kinsman, son, as well asbeing an element in
the name Hkon). This kind of ofljst iswhere a word is effectively
replaced by a synonym of a homonym.The same name is split into two
parts by tmesis in a verse attributedto Queen Gunnhildr in
Fagrskinna (F XXIX 75).
The name of inns consort Jo r (whose name means earth)is
frequently replaced by a kenning and instead of talking aboutland
or country, inns wife can be referred to, for example inthis verse
from Hallfrers Hkonardrpa about Earl Hkonwinning land:
(10) Sannyrum spenr svera*snarr iggjandi viggjar [MS
varr]*barrhaddaa byrjar [MS bjarr haddaa]*bikvn *und sik rija. [MS
bifkvn of]
The keen wind-steed-[ship-]taker [sea-farer, Earl Hkon] lures
underhimself [wins] with the true language of swords [battle] the
pine-haired deserted wife of Third [inn; his deserted wife is Jo
r,earth, i. e. the land of Norway].
The latent sexual imagery here and in other poems on the
sametheme is likely to have been particularly relished by the
earlsfollowers; it is unlikely to have any connection with myths
aboutthe ruler wedding his realm. The gaining of the earls land
isdescribed as rape, not marriage. The number of
emendationsrequired in this and other verses in Snorris Edda
implies thatscribes did not find them easy to understand.
Refhvarf is given particular attention in Snorris Httatal,
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
23
though it is not common in earlier poets, and some examples
ofhis use of this device were mentioned earlier. This is where
twowords are juxtaposed which have antithetical meanings, thoughin
many of his examples the words are used with other meaningsthat are
not antithetical, e. g. in verse 20:
Hlir hlr at stli,hafit fellr, en svfr elli(fer dvo l firrisk)
harafram mt lagar glammi.Vindr rttr vir bendir;vefr rekr haf
snekkjur;ver yrr; vsa ijur(varar fsir skip) lsa.
The bow [/warms] freezes at the prow, the sea [/lifted] falls
but thetimber glides hard forwards against [/back] the waters
uproar; thecrew [/movement] is deprived of rest. The direct
[/straightens] wind[/twists] bends the sails; the cloth [/folds]
drives [/unfolds] thewarships over the sea; the weather [/paces]
whistles [rushes]; theship is eager for [/exhorts] harbour
[/warns]; the labours reflectglory on the ruler.
Thus in this kind of verse words have to be understood in
onesense in order for the reader or listener to understand the
meaning,but in another in order to appreciate the effect of the
antithesis.It is a series of puns.
Substitution of a word by one that is a near synonym occurs
inngervingar. Snorris example is in kennings for gold of the
typefire of the sea, which according to ch. 33 of
Skldskaparmloriginated with the story of how gir, whose name means
sea,used shining gold to illuminate his hall:
So this is the story of the origin of gold being called fire or
lightor brightness of gir, Rn or girs daughters, and from
suchkennings the practice has now developed of calling gold fire of
thesea and of all terms for it, since gir and Rns names are
alsoterms for sea, and hence gold is now called fire of lakes or
riversand of all river-names.
It is in fact now difficult to know whether the kenning type
fireof the water = gold was originally used with reference to
thesea or to a river or, as Snorri maintains, with reference to
gir.
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
24
Elsewhere Snorri uses the term ngervingar to mean
extendedmetaphor, and this is effectively used by many poets.
Hiscomplicated exemplification in Httatal verse 6 gives rise
toanother of his detailed interpretations:
Svir ltr sknar naraslrbraut jo furr skra;tt ferr rgs r
rttumramsnkr fetilhamsi;linnr kn svera sennusveita bekks at
leita;ormr yrr vals *at varmri [MS r]vggjo ll sefa stgu.
The wise prince makes the adders of battle [swords] creep
thescabbard-path [be drawn].
The mighty war-snake goes swiftly from the straight
strap-slough[scabbard].
The sword-quarrel serpent can seek the stream of blood.The worm
of the slain rushes along the minds paths [mens breasts]
to the warm war-river [flowing blood].This is extended metaphor
to call a sword a worm and use anappropriate determinant, and call
the scabbard its paths and thestraps and fittings its slough. It is
in accordance with a worms naturethat it glides out of its slough
and then often glides to water. Herethe metaphor is so constructed
that the worm goes to find the streamof blood where it glides along
the paths of thought, i. e. mensbreasts. Metaphor is held to be
well composed if the idea that istaken up is maintained throughout
the stanza. But if a sword iscalled a worm, and then a fish or a
wand or varied in some otherway, this is called a monstrosity
(nykrat) and it is considered a defect.
Nykrat (literally made monstrous) is thus a kind of
mixedmetaphor. The effect of this is very similar to that of
refhvarf, inthat it involves conceptual contradictions. Though
Snorri condemnsit as unnatural (ok ykkir at spilla, and it is
thought to be ablemish, Httatal 6/16) and his nephew lfr hvtaskld
in theThird Grammatical Treatise 80 calls it a lo str, fault, a
type ofcacemphaton, improper expression, many skaldic poets
makeeffective use of the device (cf. Frank 1978, 52). Egill
Skalla-Grmsson in one verse of his Ho fulausn refers to a sword
assaddle of the whetstone, sun of battle, digger of wounds,
blood
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
25
strip, sword-strap-ice. In a lausavsa which is one of the
bestdescriptions of a sea-voyage in all skaldic verse, he calls the
shipstem-bull and a sea-kings swan and the storm the giant of the
mastand the wolf of the willow (F II 172; Turville-Petre 1976,
23):
The opposing (literally rowing in the opposite direction)
mast-giant heavily strikes out a file with the chisel of storms
before theprow out on the level stem-bulls path, and the
cold-bringing willow-wolf grinds with it mercilessly in gusts
Gestills swan round thestem in front of the prow.
The example in the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 131 is a
versefrom Jmsvkinga saga in which a cudgel is referred to by
fourdifferent kennings, though they do not actually conflict.
Thereare other good examples in Einarr sklaglamms
Vellekla(Skldskaparml verses 18, 278; see Foote and Wilson
1970,3656) and jlfrs Haustlo ng (Skldskaparml verse 92; seeMarold
1983, 191; 1993, 2917; Frank 1978, 468, 1578).
In this lecture I have tried to give an impression of the
variouskinds of complexity that are to be found in skaldic verse,
and ofhow difficult this makes the verses to understand. It seems
thatthis complexity was one of the most highly valued aspects
ofskaldic art. If we were not sure for other reasons that most
skaldicverse was composed and received orally in preliterary times,
thestyle and manner of the verse would suggest that it was
literaryand meant to be read, as it clearly was by the time Snorris
Eddacame to be written, as his treatment and discussion of it
shows.Snorri was a very literary poet and scholar. If skaldic
poetry wasreally composed and performed orally before that time,
Vikingpoets were able to call upon a very high order of verbal
ingenuityand skill indeed. Of course it is often argued that in an
oral society,such skill, and the power of verbal memory that goes
with it,was more developed anyway than it is in literate societies,
andthere may be something in this. There are nowadays people whocan
play chess without a chessboard and probably people whocan solve
crossword puzzles without using pen and paper.Composition and
comprehension of a skaldic verse without havingit on the page in
front of one is not a more difficult achievementthan these. But the
picture this gives of the Viking is of a reallyrather intellectual
type, far from the wild inspired figure evoked
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
26
by Carlyle (in his work On Heroes), and I do not of course
wantto suggest that Vikings were incapable of high intellectual
activity.Actually I think that the Viking was really rather an
intellectualchap and thought of things that would astonish you. And
Vikingpoets were probably more skilled in verbal expression, in
spiteof being less well educated in a formal sense, than
Anglo-Saxonpoets, and even than early Welsh and Irish poets,
perhaps eventhan Provenal poets, while being less idiosyncratic and
crazythan the writers of Hisperica famina.
Consider these examples of complex interweaving of sentences.The
first is from Halldrr skvaldris tfarardrpa:
(379) You were able there theirr knttu ar eira(you were never
[shields vart aldrigi (skjaldarfire thundered though homes] of
victory*leygr aut of sjo t) sigribereft) treasure to
divide.sviptrgrsimum skipta.
The pattern here is abcba, with nesting of three statements
eachof 56 words. Shields fire is a kenning for sword. (This verse
islacking in the Codex Regius; the Utrecht MS has laugr in line
3.)
From Kormakrs Sigurardrpa:
(292) Heyri sonr Srarsannreynis fentannaO RR greppa *ltk uppi
[MS ltr]jast-Rn Haralds mna.
Let the son of Haraldrs true trier [friend] listen; I cause to
be heardmy yeast-Rhine of the men of the Sr of fen-teeth.
The kenning for the poem (the teeth of the fen are rocks, the Sr
ofrocks is a giantess, whose men are giants; their yeast-liquid is
themead of poetry) is a complex one made more complex by
theinterweaving of its elements with the rest of the sentence.
Orr,generous, being nominative, could go with sonr or with ek;
Kockprefers to make it the first half of the compound orgreppa. If
thefirst possibility is adopted, the syntactical pattern becomes
abababab.
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
27
Another example from Haustlo ng:
(66) Did all, but (of Ullr)Knttu o ll, EN Ullarfrom end to end
(because of the stepfather)ENDILG fyrir mgiground was battered by
hailGRUND VAR GRPI HRUNDIN,the hawks sanctuaries [the skies]
burn*ginnunga v *brinna [MS ginnjunga v hrinna]
The word en seems to link the two clauses, though Ullar
fyrirmgi, because of rr) seems most likely to belong to the
first(all the hawks sanctuaries did burn), leaving en isolated.
Endilgmost naturally goes with grund, giving a pattern of
elementsabababa. Here too it might be possible to think of Ullar
fyrirmgi as belonging with both clauses or with the whole
statement,rather than choosing between them.
The twelfth-century Icelandic poet Einarr Sklason seems tohave
particularly liked certain kinds of complexity in his verse,and in
these two examples he is describing an ornate weapon;the ornateness
of the article described seems to be mirroredthough not actually
describedin the ornateness of the verse:
(147) Horns glorious child can I [Horn = Freyja; her child
isHrrbarni kn ek Hornar Hnoss = treasure, the precious axe](we got
a valuable treasure) possess,hlutum dran gripstra,oceans fire rests
on damager [oceans fire = gold;brandr rymr gjlfrs grandi damager of
shield = axe]gold-wrapped of shield;gullvfiu *hlfar; [MS hlar]seed
(bears her mothers)-ssberr sinnar murBATTLE-SWANS granted me
[battle-swans feeder = the ruler,SVANS unni mr GUNNAR who feeds
ravens by fighting battles]FEEDER of Fris servants [seed of Fris
servants is thefstr- GANDI Fra gold ground by Fenja and Menja]
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
28
(Freyrs niece eyelashes rain). [Freyrs niece = Hnoss, theFreys
nipt br driptir. precious axe; her mothers eyelashes
rain is the golden tears shed by Freyja, i. e. the gold
adornment on the axe]
Gullvfiu in line 4 could go with hrrbarni (it would
fitsemantically with this word; it is babies you wrap up ratherthan
axes) or grandi. In line 5 -ss is supposed to be the secondelement
of the compound fstrss, though Kock seeks tosimplify the structure
by reading fstrgandi as one word andtaking the kenning for gold as
Fra ss. This verse seems tome to be one that is virtually
impossible to understand withoutwriting it down and re-ordering the
words. Freyjas daughterHnoss is twice referred to without being
named in this verse; ineach case what is meant is hnoss as a common
noun, meaninga treasure, referring to the axe. This is what is
described aboveas ofljst.
Snorri himself uses constructions of great complexity in Httatal
98:
Veit ek verari er vell gefa,bro ndum beitaok ba snekkjurhra
hrraren heimdregaunga jo fraen auspo ru.
I know of young princes that brandish swords and set up
warshipswho are worthier of higher praise than a stay-at-home, ones
whogive gold than one sparing of wealth.
Here line 6 is parallel to lines 34 and line 8 to line 2. The
proseword-order would probably read the lines in the order 1, 7,
2,8; 3, 4, 5, 6. (Finnur Jnsson in Skjaldedigtning B II 87
takesthem in the order 1a, 7, 2a, 3, 4, 1b, 5, 6, 2b, 8.)
A device which seems very literary, and may be derived fromsome
foreign model, is that of vers rapports. This verse isattributed to
rr Sreksson, and Snorri quotes it simply toillustrate the kenning
for Njo rr in line 6; he makes no commenton its form:
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
29
(59) Var sjlf sonar Became herself of her sonnama snotr una Did
not come to loveKjalarr of tami Kjallarr (inn) tamedkvut Hami It is
said that Hamir did notGorn bani Gurn the slayergobrr Vani the
bride of the gods the Vanrheldr vel mara rather well horsesho rleik
spara. bow-warfare hold back.
Here it is the meaning of the words and our knowledge of
thestories referred to, rather than the grammar, that requires us
totake the four statements as consisting of lines 1+5, 2+6, 3+7and
4+8. The pattern is thus abcdabcd.
Finnur Jnsson in his great comprehensive edition of skaldicverse
offered interpretations that frequently choose the mostcomplicated
ways of interpreting it even when simpler analysesare easy to see.
E. A. Kock compiled a huge set of notes (Notationesnorrn) on the
interpretations of skaldic verses, in which hefrequently took issue
with Finnur Jnsson for not choosing simplersolutions, accusing his
interpretations of being desk inter-pretations rather than ones
that would be natural to oral poets,and a rather ill-tempered
dispute then took place between thetwo scholars. Many of Kocks
interpretations, however, in spiteof being syntactically simpler,
actually involve doing much moreviolence to the natural meanings of
words and to natural grammarthan is involved in Finnurs tortuous
word-order, though neitherhe nor anyone else has been able to
deduce any grammatical ormetrical rules to explain the apparently
arbitrary structure ofinterwoven sentences in skaldic verse.
Neither Hans KuhnsSentence Particle Law nor his theory about the
caesura (1983,8997, 188206) help very much, though they go some
waytowards it. And Finnur seems to me to have more feeling
andintuition for the Old Norse language than Kock. From
anexamination of the complex and unnatural effects that
areundoubtedly sometimes really used by Viking poets, and
fromSnorris comments on them, it looks as though these poets
didprefer complex meanings and effects to simple natural
speech.
Nevertheless, I am doubtful about whether Viking poets
everintended verses to have more than one interpretation (as
for
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
30
instance in verse 193 quoted earlier), and whether that kind
ofambiguity was part of the acknowledged skill in the
activity;ofljst uses words with double meanings, and the meaning
isoften concealed, or turns out to be other than at first
seemedimplied, but the verse as a whole only ever means one
thing.There could always, of course, have been disagreements in
theaudience about how a particular verse ought to be read, but
itseems that both poets and audiences wanted complexity.
Snorri speaks of the need for kennings to be in accordancewith
nature (Skldskaparml ch. 33: This is all consideredacceptable when
it is in accordance with genuine similarity andthe nature of things
[me lkindum ok eli]). But skaldic verseis in its essence unnatural,
in diction, word-order, and grammar,and in ch. 33 Snorri is talking
about word-substitution, notmetaphor or images. The parallel with
Viking art, particularlythe interlace ornament that was popular
throughout the VikingAge, has often been made. The Vikings visual
art, like theirverbal art, contains representations of objects in
the real world,but stylised and made complex to such an extent that
it becomesvery difficult to interpret, and the real nature of what
is depictedseems to be deliberately concealed rather than revealed
by theart. The reason for this, as with the use of runes, seems to
berelated not to the desire to be esoteric and hieroglyphic for
religiousor social or any other reasons, but to an aesthetic
preference forcomplexity and puzzlement. Skaldic poetry seems to
have beena restricted code to an even less extent than Anglo-Saxon
or OldFrench poetry, which was probably confined to the
aristocraticor religious ranks in society, whereas poetry seems to
have beenan almost universal activity among the Vikings, both as
composersand audiences.
I have already mentioned Carlyles notorious but
unfortunatelyinfluential lectures On heroes, hero-worship, and the
heroic inhistory (1841). He valued Old Norse poetry for its
visionaryqualities, and describes inn as the originator of Old
Norsepoetry in this way in his first lecture:
Strong sons of Nature; and here was not only a wild Captain
andFighter; discerning with his wild flashing eyes what to do, with
hiswild lion-heart daring and doing it; but a Poet too, all that we
mean
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IN OLD NORSE AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY
31
by a Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor,as the
trulyGreat Man ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all points; in the soul
andthought of him first of all. This Odin, in his rude
semi-articulateway, had a word to speak. A great heart laid open to
take in thisgreat Universe, and mans Life here, and utter a great
word aboutit. A Hero, as I say, in his own rude manner; a wise,
gifted, noble-hearted man. And now, if we still admire such a man
beyond allothers, what must these wild Norse souls, first awakened
into thinking,have made of him! To them, as yet without names for
it, he wasnoble and noblest; Hero, Prophet, God; Wuotan, the
greatest of all.Thought is Thought, however it speak or spell
itself. Intrinsically,I conjecture, this Odin must have been of the
same sort of stuff asthe greatest kind of men. A great thought in
the wild deep heart ofhim! The rough words he articulated, are they
not the rudimentalroots of those English words we still use? He
worked so, in thatobscure element. But he was as a light kindled in
it; a light of Intellect,rude Nobleness of heart, the only kind of
lights we have yet; aHero, as I say: and he had to shine there, and
make his obscureelement a little lighter,as is still the task of us
all.
That is, he regarded the obscurity of Old Norse verse as a
resultof its primitiveness. I regard the Vikings techniques of
versecomposition as inspired, not what they say; and their
obscurityas arising from sophisticated rhetorical complexity. If I
wantedto find something to set against the Vikings reputation as
raider,rapist and pillager to demonstrate how civilised and
intelligenthe really was, I would choose first not his trading
activities, noreven his navigational and organisational skills, nor
yet his artistryand craftsmanship except perhaps in shipbuilding,
but his verbalskills. I frequently find it necessary to remind
myself, in the wordsof a better scholar than myself, that in our
reading of medievalliterature we must always try to praise the
right things for theright reasons. In accordance with that, I think
we should praiseskaldic poets for their highly developed verbal
skill rather thanfor their perceptions of their world or for their
inspiration orimagination. And in any case I believe that verbal
skill is muchmore to their credit than anything else they might be
said to haveachieved. In the words of Bragi the Old (verse 300b):
hagsmirbragarhvat er skld nema at? (skilful craftsman of versewhat
is a poet but that?)
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POETICAL INSPIRATION
32
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