Of the two chief forms of Old Norse poetry,
“Eddic” poetry (the sort found in the POETIC
EDDA) was comparatively simple, following the
basic conventions of most Germanic verse, like
that of OLD ENGLISH. It was anonymous ALLITERATIVE
VERSE, was relatively simple in diction, and related
traditional mythological material. Skaldic
poetry, by contrast, was highly intricate and complex
in its structure and diction, composed by
identifiable self-conscious literary artists in the
employ of Scandinavian kings and princes. Today
more than 40,000 lines of skaldic poetry are extant,
dating from between 850 and 1400. The
names of 250 skaldic poets, mainly Icelandic, have
also come down to us. Though it seems likely that
skaldic poetry was composed in all Scandinavian
countries, only poems composed by Norwegian
and, to a much larger extent, Icelandic poets
(working in the courts of Norwegian princes)
have survived.
The first known skald was Bragi Boddason,
called “the Old” (ca. 835–900). The emergence of
the earliest skalds corresponds with the consolidation
of royal power in Norway (under King Harald
Fairhair) and the concomitant expansion of
the royal court. Most of the skaldic poetry that
survives was written to celebrate some royal figure.
The king needed the skald to commemorate
his heritage, his great victories, and his generosity—
it was on the skald that his fame depended.
In contrast with praise poems, a skald could also
produce what was called a ní´∂ (an insult or derision),
which was thought to have particularly dire
consequences.
The predominant form of skaldic verse was the
dróttvætt (“heroic meter”—verse appropriate for
the drótt, or royal retainers). A stanza in this meter
comprised eight lines, each with six syllables. Each
line has three stressed syllables and uses internal
rhyme. The basic unit of composition is a couplet,
in which two syllables of the first line alliterate
with the first syllable of the second line. A caesura
separates the internal rhyming syllables of each
line, and of necessity also separates the alliterating
syllables of the first line of each couplet. In addition,
there were at least 48 different variations of
this verse form, demonstrated in SNORRI STURLUSON’s
Háttatal, included as a tour de force in his
PROSE EDDA (ca. 1225). In order to conform to this
incredibly complex pattern, the syntax of skaldic
poetry is often very free, so that segments of different
sentences are intertwined in a way that often
makes for ambiguity of meaning.
Rhetorical complexity is also an integral part of
skaldic verse. Poets use a great number of heiti
(“names”), or synonyms often used only in poetic
contexts, for a large number of concepts (the gods,
warriors, weapons, animals, ships, the sea) that are
common in Norse poetry of the court. Each of these
heiti has a slightly different connotation, so that a
poet can choose precisely the right term from the
150 heiti for the god Odin that fits his meter, alliteration,
internal rhyme, and the sense of his line.
Even more challenging is the skaldic use of KENNINGS.
The poets do use simple kennings at times—
truncated metaphors by which a subject is spoken
of as if it were something else (a ship as the “horse
of the sea” for example). A kenning generally consists
of two terms—a basic term (the horse) and a
second term with which the basic term is related in
the metaphor (the sea). But in skaldic verse, each
individual term of the kenning might be expressed
by a kenning—so that if the sea might be called the
“swan’s road,” a kenning for a ship might be “horse
of the swan’s road”—and so on. And if this does
not complicate matters enough, many kennings are
based on mythological allusions, so that gold might
be called “Sif ’s hair” because of a myth that Loki
had cut off all of Sif ’s hair (she was Thor’s wife),
and was forced to make her new hair out of gold.
Thus, understanding the skaldic poem involved appreciation
of its convoluted syntax, puzzling
through its riddle-like kennings, and knowing the
myth that the kennings alluded to.
Only a small portion of Old Norse skaldic poetry
has survived, and much of the earlier verse has
survived embedded in prose works from the 13th
century and later—such as, for example, the poems
of the ninth-century Icelandic skaldic poet and
warrior Egil Skallagrimsson quoted in the 13thcentury
EGIL’S SAGA. There is some debate as to
whether these embedded poems are genuine or
later compositions by the saga writers themselves,
but Snorri Sturluson does assert in the prologue to
his HEIMSKRINGLA (ca. 1235) that poems by the
skalds of Harald Fairhair were still remembered
verbatim. But any comments made by the saga
writers about the circumstances of the poems’
compositions are probably not to be trusted, being
in general imaginative guesses about the inspiration
for each poem. Still, our best knowledge of
how skaldic poetry works comes from prose treatises
of the 13th century, the best known of which is
Snorri’s Prose Edda. Anyone exploring the specific
aspects of skaldic poetry should begin with Snorri.
Bibliography
Nordal, Gu´∂rún. Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic
Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture in the Twelfth
and Thirteenth Centuries. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2001.
Ross,Margaret Clunies. Skáldskaparmál: Snorri Sturluson’s
Ars Poetica and Medieval Theories of Language.
Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1987.
Sturluson, Snorri. Edda. Edited and translated by Anthony
Faulkes. London: Dent, 1987.
Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Scaldic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1976.