Cite as: Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2017, ‘Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal 74’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 1185.

Hafrǫst hristir hlunnvigg tiggja; borðgrund bendir brimdýrs stýri. Blá veit brjóta byrskíð víði bǫðharðr bǫrðum buðlungr þungan. Hafrǫst hristir hlunnvigg tiggja; borðgrund bendir brimdýrs stýri. Blá veit brjóta byrskíð víði bǫðharðr bǫrðum buðlungr þungan. Hafrǫst hristir hlunnvigg tiggja; borðgrund bendir stýri brimdýrs. Bǫðharðr buðlungr veit blá byrskíð brjóta þungan víði bǫrðum.

text prose order   The sea-current shakes {the roller-steed} [SHIP] of the ruler; {the ship-board-ground} [SEA] bends the rudder {of the surf-animal}. [SHIP] The battle-hard lord knows that {the dark breeze-skis} [SHIPS] break the heavy sea with their prows.

context: The metre is stúfhent ‘stump-rhymed’. Each line consists of four syllables (four metrical positions as in fornyrðislag), with the internal rhymes (skothending in odd lines and aðalhending in even lines) on adjacent syllables (the syllable with secondary stress in position 2 and the fully stressed syllable in position 3, the first syllable of the cadence). All lines are Type A2l. The term stúfhent must refer to the monosyllabic rhyming syllables in position 2. The odd lines have two alliterative staves (in positions 1 and 3), and in the even lines the hǫfuðstafr ‘main stave’ falls on the first lift (in metrical position 1).

notes: The rubric in R is lxvii. — This metre is not attested elsewhere in skaldic poetry.

texts: ‹Ht 77›, ‹SnE 669›

editions: Skj Snorri Sturluson: 2. Háttatal 74 (AII, 71; BII, 81); Skald II, 45; SnE 1848-87, I, 690-1, III, 130, SnE 1879-81, I, 12, 82, II, 28, SnE 1931, 245, SnE 2007, 31; Konráð Gíslason 1895-7, I, 47.

sources

GKS 2367 4° (R)	51v, 21 - 51v, 23	(SnE)
AM 242 fol (W)	149, 23 - 149, 25	(SnE)