Note to RvHbreiðm Hl 43III
[All]: The meaning of hnúfu (nom. hnúfa) in hnúfu háttr is disputed. Jón Sigurðsson suggested ‘hump-form’, referring to the additional line added to each helmingr, whereas Finnur Jónsson (1892, 56; 1907, 203) and Magnus Olsen (1932a, 150) believed that the term could have been derived from the nickname of the skald Ǫlvir hnúfa (ǪlvI) ‘Snub-nose’ (?). For later attestations of the metre, see Maríulykill st. 18 (ÍM II, 216) and Háttalykill Lopts Guttormssonar sts 5, 31 (Småstykker 11, 220, 238), where it is called álagsháttr ‘extension’s form’ (see sts 79-80 below and SnSt Ht 27). Holtsmark (Hl 1941, 132-3) suggested that the metre originated as an imitation of Old French troubadour poetry, and that the refrain may have been sung (for similar refrains in troubadour poems, see Holtsmark loc. cit.).
References
- Bibliography
- ÍM = Jón Helgason, ed. 1936-8. Íslenzk miðaldarkvæði: Islandske digte fra senmiddelalderen. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
- Hl 1941 = Jón Helgason and Anne Holtsmark, eds. 1941. Háttalykill enn forni. BA 1. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
- Olsen, Magnus. 1932a. ‘Orknø-Norn og norrøn diktning på Orknøene’. MM, 137-53.
- Finnur Jónsson. 1892. ‘Navnet Ljóðaháttr og andre versarters navne, samt rettelser i texten i Codex regius af Snorres Edda’. ANF 8, 307-22.
- Internal references
- Margaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘(Biography of) Ǫlvir hnúfa’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 491.
- Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 27’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1133.
- Not published: do not cite ()