Hyrst Werre

Haroldsflokkur Documentation

Edith de Brereton

This work is eddic poetry, a type of Germanic poetry. Its theme is a heroic retelling of a historical battle, with praise elements directed at a historical leader who perished in the battle. The theme and devices in the poem are consistent with period pieces, though I wrote the poem in modern English.

Skaldic poetry, though there are several forms, follows a set of rules which are shared across all forms of Germanic poetry.

Alliteration: Also called “initial rhyme”. This is a requirement of Germanic verse. Important words in the half-line will alliterate, and half-lines, the basic unit of Germanic verse, are paired together by alliteration. Any vowel alliterates with any other vowel. For a period example of this, take lines 2 and 3 from “Cædmon's Hymn”, written in England in the 7th century:

 

“Metodes meahta and his modgeþanc / weorc Wuldor-Fæder, swa he wundra gehwæs.”

 

Here we see that line 2 is paired together by alliteration of the letter m, while line 3 is paired by the letter w.

Stress: In Germanic poetry, the half-lines tend to have a certain number of stressed and unstressed syllables. More complex forms like drottkvaett have rules about which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed, as well as how many syllables can go in each line, but the majority of poems we find both in Snorri's Prose Edda and eddic poetry are not so strict. There are still different types of meter which may act as a guideline. Old Lore Meter, or Fornyrdislag, has two to three unstressed syllables per half-line. Speech Meter, or Malahattr, has four to five unstressed syllable per half-line. For this reason, poems written in strictly speech meter would have longer lines than those using strictly lore meter. Many poems will use both.

Stress becomes a challenge, especially when writing more restrictive forms like drottkvaett, when we write them in modern English. Old Norse and Old English both stressed the first syllables of the words they used, whereas we tend to stress the second (which is why iambic pentameter can flow so nicely). Therefore, the natural flow of a poem written in modern English may be different than if the same poem were translated into Old Norse.

Stanzas: Not all Germanic verse was divided into stanzas. Eddic poetry like Beowulf was not stanzaic, but Norse poetry is. Being a longer poem with multiple stanzas means that a poem is either a flokkur or a drapa. The difference is that a drapa has a refrain and a flokkur has none. My poem is a flokkur. I like the feel of the drapa because I feel that the refrain ties the poem together well and brings the reader (or, in period, the listener) back to a consistent theme, but I didn't have a suitable refrain, so I chose a flokkur.

Theme

 

When I began writing this poem, I wanted to write a heroic piece. I had been reading two pieces of heroic (though not necessarily skaldic) poetry, The Battle of Maldon and Y Gododdin. The Battle of Maldon is an Old English poem that focuses on the Anglo-Saxons battling the Vikings. The poem is a battle poem to the core, and it makes numerous mentions of men fighting bravely against the foe. Here are some examples:

 

“They heard him shout,

Send o'er the tide the taunt of the pirates;

Hailing the earl, he hurled this challenge...”

 

“Strode the battle-wolves bold through the water;

West over Panta waded the pirates;

Carried their shields o'er the shining waves;

Safely their lindenwoods landed the sailors.”

 

From this I took my theme. I wondered which battle I might write about, and settled on the Battle of Hastings, where the English were defeated by the Normans. I wrote about the men fighting, about how, despite being outnumbered, they held out through the night against men mounted on horses until they were overwhelmed. Later I added in earlier events, from the beginning of Harold's rule to the end.

 

There are many similarities between The Battle of Maldon and my poem. The most basic one is the theme; both focus on a battle that was fought bravely by the Saxons and still ended in defeat. Both mention battle with the Vikings. The battle against the Vikings in The Battle of Maldon even features a bridge:

 

“Defended the bridge, and fought with the boldest,

As long as their hands could lift a sword.”

 

Beyond that, this verse is a testament to what the men in the poem – the heroes – achieved. They were bold. They fought as long as they were physically able to fight. While the style is different (I was hoping to mimic the shorter lines of Old Lore Meter), I hoped to do the same thing when I wrote lines like this:

 

“Bold men, battle-worn,

battered, blood-soaked,

Hilt in hand,

retained the ridge.”

 

“Still they stood, shields busted, spears shattered;

Still they stood, under the stars, still fighting.”

 

 

There were verses in The Battle of Maldon that mentioned the intensity of the fighting.

 

“ Shield against shield, to shatter the enemy.

Near was the battle, now for the glory,

Now for the death of the doomed in the field.

Swelled the war-cry, circled the ravens.”

 

 

This really feels vivid, and it takes you into the battle and makes you ever more aware of the bravery these men had. I tried to add in details about the battle.

 

“So close they stood; no swords would swing.

Arrows from above,

even this endured.

Man and mare metal murdered.”

 

“Sigurdsson held a shield-wall

Standing against the Saxons.

The lines clashed, collided,

Locking shields, striking with spears,

Thinning out their troops.

Traitors taken without armor,

Tossed to the field for ravens.

For hours they fought.

So many slain,

Sigurdsson among them.”

 

 

Both poems make mention of ravens. This is not exclusive to these poems, as ravens were commonly associated with death in battle. They were a common symbol, and so it would be inappropriate to not mention ravens feasting on the fallen.

I feel that The Battle of Maldon focuses less on a single man than my poem, but I notice that there are signs of loyalty to a thane and grief when the heroic leaders fall:

 

“Killed in conflict and covered with wounds;

He lay by his lord, a loyal thane.”

 

“Here lies in his blood our leader and comrade,

The brave on the beach. Bitter shall rue it

Who turns his back on the battle-field now.

Here I stay; I am stricken and old;

My life is done; I shall lay me down

Close by my lord and comrade.”

 

When I wrote about Harold, I was going off of the period assumption that he was cut down savagely in battle. There was a poem written within a few years of the Battle of Hastings, called Carmen De Hastingae Proelio (“The Song of the Battle of Hastings”) which said that all William did was “remove the heads of the flowers”. And so I took that sentiment, which I'm sure was common at the time after the battle, and incorporated it into my own poem:

 

“Fair flower picked from the field,

From the field into the fire.”

 

 

While I've mostly mentioned The Battle of Maldon, there are plenty of poems with a historical focus. Konunga sogur was a collection of about 1270 stanzas about Icelandic kings. Landnamabok was a saga about bishops; Islendingadrapa is about Icelanders; Jomsvikingadrapa is about Jomsvikingar. In addition, kings would often commission skalds to write poems to praise their great deeds. In Old English mead halls, heroic tales were passed around by scops. I feel confident when I say that my subject matter is period.

 

I tried to add in additional Norse/Old English ideas to give the poem a more period feel. For starters, I put in a few Old English words. Then, I took the idea that the king was favored by the gods and mentioned Odin, the “Hanged god, from his gallows,” in reference to the days Odin spent hanging from a tree. A medieval Norse audience would clue into this. I also called England “Wodensland”, in reference to the Saxon god Woden. I introduced the English idea of destiny and wrote things like “Wyrd had woven his last thread” and “fortune was not their favor”. One way of thinking of wyrd (or fate) was as a thread being woven into a tapestry, so I thought I would incorporate it in.

I made sure to use kennings in my poem. Many of them were period. For example, “battle sweat” was used in Beowulf; “headland of swords” is used in Glymdrápa; “hanged god” and “lord of the gallows” are common names of Odin; “battle sweat” was used in Beowulf. Since these were written down, I thought that they would be familiar to a medieval audience and therefore used them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf.

New York: W. W. Nortan & Company, 2000. Print.

 

Ross, Margaret Clunies. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics.

Cambridge: D. S. 2005. Print.

 

Young, Jean I. The Prose Edda.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954. Print.

 

Hollander, Lee. The Skalds.

New York: Princeton University Press. 1947. Print.

 

Vantuono, William. Old and Middle English Texts with Accompanying Texual and Linguistic Apparatus.

New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1994. Print.

 

Pollington, Stephen. Wordcraft Wordhoard and Word Lists Concise New English to Old English Dictionary and Thesaurus.

Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books. 1996. Print.

 

Ricks, Christopher. The Oxford Book of English Verse.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

 

Shapiro, James and Woodring, Carl. The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Print.

 

"The Battle of Maldon (Fragment)." Trans. J. Duncan Spaeth. Old English Poetry. Princeton University Press, 1922. 164. LitFinder. Web. 8 Jan. 2016.

 

The Battle of Hastings. (n.d.) Retrieved July 17, 2015. http://regia.org.research/warfare/hastings.htm

 

 

Jófríðr þorbjarnardóttír. Old Norse Poetry: Eddic and Skaldic Verse. Unpublished handout.