Note to SnSt Ht 35III
[All]: There is no heading in U for this variant, and Tˣ gives 28. For this metre, see also RvHbreiðm Hl 81-2. According to Snorri, the metre was invented by a poet called Veili (SnE 2007, 18): Þenna hátt fann fyrst Veili. Þá lá hann í útskeri nokkvoru, kominn af skipsbroti, ok hǫfðu þeir illt til klæða ok veðr kalt. Þá orti hann kvæði er kallat er kviðan skjálfhenda eða drápan steflausa, ok kveðit eptir Sigurðar sǫgu ‘Veili was the first to invent this verse-form. Then he was lying on an outer skerry after a shipwreck, and they had poor clothing and cold weather. Then he composed the poem which is called the tremble-rhymed poem or the drápa without a stef, and it was modelled on the saga of Sigurðr’. Veili is likely to be the poet Þorvaldr veili ‘the Miserable’ (ÞveilV), but the only stanza attributed to him (Þveil LvV (Nj 7)) does not contain this particular metrical feature (for this dróttkvætt variant, see also Kuhn 1983, 105, 289, 333-4; SnE 2007, 58-9; Gade 1995a, 56-9, 72, 226, 260 n. 1, 262 n. 3).
References
- Bibliography
- Gade, Kari Ellen. 1995a. The Structure of Old Norse dróttkvætt Poetry. Islandica 49. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Kuhn, Hans (1899). 1983. Das Dróttkvætt. Heidelberg: Winter.
- SnE 2007 = Snorri Sturluson. 2007. Edda: Háttatal. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Internal references
- Not published: do not cite (ÞveilV)
- R. D. Fulk (forthcoming), ‘ Þorvaldr veili, Lausavísa’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1485> (accessed 2 May 2024)
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Rǫgnvaldr jarl and Hallr Þórarinsson, Háttalykill 81’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1092.
- R. D. Fulk (ed.) 2022, ‘Njáls saga 7 (Gunnarr Hámundarson, Lausavísur 3)’ in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1228.